ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

The Secretary of State was asked—

Agricultural Labour

John Whittingdale: What recent discussions he has had on the availability of agricultural labour; and if he will make a statement.

Jane Kennedy: May I say on behalf of those who come to Prayers that it is a little disconcerting to have the blinds run up and down during them, particularly as we need all the help we can get these days and Prayers are quite important?
	At the end of last year, in response to concerns expressed by the industry about shortages of seasonal labour, the Government announced a 5,000 increase in the seasonal agricultural workers scheme quota for 2009. I am pleased that we were also recently able to address swiftly some practical problems that could have arisen affecting the availability of sheep shearers. I am grateful for the assistance of my Home Office colleagues, and the hon. Gentleman will know that we meet representatives of farmers regularly on all sorts of subjects.

John Whittingdale: I welcome the measures that the Minister refers to, but she will be aware that many people, particularly in the horticultural and fruit growing industries, depend heavily on the seasonal agricultural workers scheme and are concerned about what will happen when Bulgaria and Romania become full members of the European Union. Will she consider extending the scheme to other countries to ensure that there remains a flow of seasonal workers for those very important industries?

Jane Kennedy: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the matter. We are being advised that there is more confidence among farmers and growers this year that they will have sufficient labour for seasonal fruit and vegetable harvesting, largely due to the economic climate in which they are operating. However, I can assure him that we keep the situation under close review. Indeed, all being well, my noble Friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath will meet my hon. Friend the Minister for Borders and Immigration in the week after the recess.

Common Agricultural Policy

Peter Bone: What recent assessment he has made of progress in reforming the common agricultural policy.

Hilary Benn: The CAP health check was a useful step forward. It removed about half the remaining production-coupled payments, doubled the amount of EU funding transferred to rural and environmental support, reduced levels of intervention, cut prices for consumers and gave farmers greater freedom. We will continue to press for further reform in the forthcoming EU budget review.

Peter Bone: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that response, but in December 2005 Tony Blair said that our EU contributions were linked to reforming the CAP. Last year, our contribution to the EU was £3 billion, and next year it will be £6.5 billion—an incredible increase of 117 per cent. We have seen no reform in the CAP and a massive increase in our contributions. Is not the EU again fleecing the British people to prop up French farmers?

Hilary Benn: I do not agree that there has been no reform of the CAP. If the hon. Gentleman cares to go back 30 years or so, he will see that 80-plus per cent. of the EU budget went on the CAP, and it is currently about 41 or 42 per cent. That has happened only because of the process of reform, for which successive British Governments have pressed very strongly. As he will be only too well aware, the process of change requires agreement across a range of member states, not all of which share our views about the need to press for further reform.

David Drew: As a regular critic of the CAP, I have to say that if we did not have it, we would now have to invent it. The simple fact is that we need to produce more food in this country and western Europe. We are facing a crisis, and we cannot pretend otherwise. Having spent all this time trying to remove production subsidies, are the Government willing at least to consider ways in which we can reform the CAP to encourage not just the big farmers but all manner of farmers and food producers, so that food is a high priority in our economy and that of the rest of Europe?

Hilary Benn: I agree that the task of feeding the world's growing population is very important for us. That is why I have said that it is important that we have a strong, thriving British agricultural sector producing as much food as it can. However, one has to recognise that one consequence of the CAP has been that it has undermined the incentive for farmers in other parts of the world, particularly in developing countries, to produce their own food, because the big surpluses that were produced in the past were then dumped on their markets. That is why getting rid of export subsidies remains a really important task, not least through the Doha negotiations, so that farmers in those countries have an incentive to get production up. It is a big task for the global agricultural industry, and UK farming will need to play its part.

Nicholas Winterton: My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) mentioned the particular figure for our contribution to the European agricultural policy. I will mention a bigger figure. In the past 10 years, we have contributed more than £120 billion to the European Union. Following the question from the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), is it not time that the common agricultural policy and the UK Government's endeavours were directed more at helping United Kingdom farmers, rather than allowing a still substantial sum of money to go to relatively inefficient farmers in other countries in the European Union, not least France?

Hilary Benn: We put a substantial amount of money into the British agricultural industry through the common agricultural policy. One of the changes that we have made is to shift the balance from production support to supporting farmers for environmentally sustainable farming. The success of agri-environment schemes in the past 21 years, partly in fixing some of the damage that the common agricultural policy at its height created, not least grubbing up hedgerows, is a step in the right direction. In future, we will have to balance the need to grow much more food with the need to do so in a much more environmentally sustainable way because, in the end, soil and water are the raw materials on which food production depends.

Tim Farron: Like many hon. Members here, I recently signed an early-day motion that celebrated the 10th anniversary of the national minimum wage, but 15,000 farmers in this country earn less than £10,000 a year—less than the national minimum wage. Yet we have a farm payments system underneath the common agricultural policy that rewards many wealthy estates that do not need the money and wastes £7 million a year on making small payments of sometimes as little as 70p to people who, with all due respect, are not farmers. Does the Secretary of State agree that the CAP needs to be reformed to ensure that farm payments go to the farmers who need it and are often critically underpaid?

Hilary Benn: I agree with the hon. Gentleman about very small payments. As he knows, we are currently consulting on how we might change the system in the light of the CAP health check to make some changes that make it easier for farmers—for example, giving farmers in future the right to decide when they go on to waterlogged soil as opposed to Secretary of States' having to sign a bit of paper to say that they can do it. Farmers know best how to deal with their soil.
	On minimum payments, the consultation is asking what should be the hectarage threshold. I encourage everyone who has a view to respond because very small payments clearly add to the Rural Payments Agency's work load, and it is right that we support that body. I will be able to tell the House later about progress in getting this year's payments out.

Nick Herbert: What confidence can we have in the Government's ability to fight Britain's corner on CAP reform? Why did Britain not fight harder against the absurd and costly proposals for electronic sheep tagging? The Secretary of State left it to Hungary to put the issue on the agenda at a recent Agriculture Council. He says that the current labelling rules on food are nonsense and need to change, but he will not introduce a compulsory scheme to stop British consumers being misled and our farmers being let down. When will the Government stand up for Britain's interests in Europe?

Hilary Benn: The hon. Gentleman should look back at what has happened on the electronic identification of sheep. We were the first country to raise the matter in the Council—I did it. He refers to the subsequent discussion in the Agriculture Council, at which my right hon. Friend the Minister of State was present. I am glad to say that we showed leadership in arguing that the cost of what was agreed in 2003 outweighs the benefits, which now flow. The UK has led the way in trying to get changes in the scheme's implementation because I recognise the burden that it will place on sheep farmers. If it had not been for our efforts, we would be in an even more difficult position. As the hon. Gentlemen knows only too well, to change the regulation, we need sufficient member states to share the view that the British Government have expressed for some time.

Nick Herbert: Frankly, Britain's farmers will be dismayed that the Secretary of State thinks that he got a good deal for them on sheep tagging. The proposal is absurd, costly and unnecessary. He said earlier that the CAP health check was a useful step forward, but at the time he said that it was a missed opportunity. He certainly missed an opportunity by failing to send a Minister to a crucial summit when the proposals were first discussed. French and German Ministers were there, but not ours. He complains about the pesticides directive now, but when it was voted through Britain abstained. Ministerial hand wringing does nothing to help British farmers. If he cannot do better to defend British interests, is it not time to stand aside and make way for a Government who will?

Hilary Benn: That has been a rather familiar theme this week. The hon. Gentleman raises the pesticides directive, but no European Union country has done more to argue against it than the United Kingdom. We did the impact assessment, through the pesticides safety directorate. We have been leading the fight against the pesticides directive. In the end, it went to the European Parliament, because although there are bits of the directive that we agree with, the bit that we do not agree with is the total uncertainty about what pesticides will be available to treat, for example, diseases that affect wheat. There are bits that represent progress and bits that do not. The Government's view on the bits that do not represent progress has been clear: we will not vote for that part of the directive, because we should not be asked to sign up to proposals in Europe when, frankly, nobody can say what they will mean in practice for farmers who are using pesticides to try to grow more food.

Zero-grazing

Robert Key: What assessment he has made of the effect on animal health of zero-grazing.

Jane Kennedy: The permanent housing of cattle is an emerging farming system in the UK. We are funding a three-year research project with the Scottish Agricultural College to investigate the management and welfare of continuously housed dairy cows. The study will include a comparison of the health of cows in continuously housed systems with that of those in summer grazing systems.

Robert Key: That is good news, but does the Minister agree that the fiercer the supermarket wars and the lower the price of milk to farmers and consumers, the greater the pressure on the dairy industry to reduce costs by going for zero-grazing? Does she also agree that fears about the animal welfare implications of zero-grazing are not misplaced when herd sizes can be up to 1,000 cattle at a time, which makes zero-grazing the only option for feeding? That remains a matter of great concern. Meanwhile, the British dairy herd continues to decline.

Jane Kennedy: I agree that the dairy sector is under intense pressure at the moment. I also agree with the hon. Gentleman's general comments about the concern that exists about the welfare of cattle in those systems, but I do not accept that the zero-grazing of cattle is inherently cruel or unacceptable. It is important to recognise that poor standards of animal health and welfare can exist in intensive farming and less intensive systems. The most significant influence on the health and welfare of livestock is the skills and experience of the stock keeper and the support that that individual gets, as I have seen for myself on a number of farms where livestock has been farmed extensively and intensively.

David Taylor: I greatly respect and have regular contact with the NFU, which has mounted a vigorous rebuttal of criticisms of zero-grazing. Nevertheless, is not a greater and greater proportion of the national herd being zero-grazed for a longer period of the year? As the years have gone by, has not further intensification of stock breeding and husbandry been associated with greater and more frequent outbreaks of disease?

Jane Kennedy: Before we categorise the dairy sector as predominantly continuously housed, let me point out that the industry estimates that about 5 per cent. of herds have some cattle that are housed all year round. Dairy cattle are already ordinarily kept indoors during the winter when conditions are unsuitable for them to go outside. My hon. Friend is right to raise that concern, as is the hon. Member for Salisbury (Robert Key). We are working with the industry, through the Dairy Supply Chain Forum, to ensure that we maximise the opportunities for the dairy sector and give whatever assistance we can, as it goes through this difficult period in pricing. I note that production increased marginally in April this year, compared with April last year. However, there is so much volatility that we cannot rely on one month's figures.

Patrick Cormack: I thank the Minister for her reasoned and moderate approach, but would she accept, first, that our dairy industry is of fundamental importance to our food economy and, secondly, that year-round zero-grazing is totally unnatural and really not acceptable?

Jane Kennedy: I accept the concerns that have been raised, but I am reluctant to pass judgment on farmers who are delivering high standards of animal health and welfare in some intensive farming systems, including those involving continuously housed dairy cows. We need to get the results of the study we are undertaking with our Scottish partners, so that we can understand the impact of the trend on the health of animals. Intuitively, I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but we need some evidence before we perhaps bring about regulatory changes that might impact on an industry already wrestling with difficult challenges.

Biodiversity Duty

Roger Williams: What recent progress has been made in his Department's review of the effect of the biodiversity duty provided for in the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006.

Huw Irranca-Davies: I am pleased to report progress to the hon. Gentleman and to the House on this matter. We have commissioned a study by Entec of how public authorities have responded to the biodiversity duty since it came into force. It will comprise a large-scale study of public bodies this summer, followed by interviews with a smaller sample of bodies, and views from other stakeholders. We expect it to report in November.

Roger Williams: Up-to-date, accurate information on threatened species is required if we are to prioritise action, including information not only on threatened species such as the lady's slipper orchid and the ghost orchid, but even on species such as the lapwing and cuckoo, which are not threatened but are reducing in number. I do not know whether the Minister has heard a cuckoo yet, but I certainly have not. The Joint Nature Conservation Committee has previously published and funded red data books, but it no longer seems to do that work, presumably because it does not have the resources. What plans do the Government have to ensure that those vital books are published and kept up to date?

Huw Irranca-Davies: I will not respond directly to the cuckoo question, but I will look at this issue and will happily discuss it with the hon. Gentleman further. The review will provide useful information and evidence to help us understand how the duty is being implemented and how to inform further action. Having that report in November will allow us to give a proper response. The review will allow us not only to see what is happening, but to raise the profile of the importance of implementing action on biodiversity across the UK.

Anne McIntosh: Will not the Government miss nine out of their 10 biodiversity targets to be achieved by next year? The Secretary of State has just said that the UK should not sign up to commitments from Europe before we know what impact that would have on the United Kingdom. Rather than reset these targets, as the Government have said in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), would it not be better to admit that the targets were misplaced in the first place?

Huw Irranca-Davies: No, no, no. I know that the hon. Lady has genuine concerns about this, but the wide variety of stakeholders engaged in this issue recognise that the targets we set were ambitious, possibly beyond our reach. As we head to 2010 and look at resetting them, it is important that they are not only stretching and ambitious, but realistic and achievable. It is right that we have driven towards achieving those targets and that the UK leads the way in tackling biodiversity issues. Far from there being nothing but gloom, we should not forget that 88 per cent. of our sites of special scientific interest are now in favourable or improving condition, compared with 57 per cent. in 2003, and that our UK biodiversity action plan is driving the way forward.

Tony Lloyd: Will my hon. Friend acknowledge the importance of biodiversity for pollinators, particularly the honey bee, and the important role that increasing biodiversity will have in maintaining and increasing the health of the honey bee? Let me ask a rather more difficult question. Will the majority of the £10 million funding for pollinators be devoted to research on honey bees, rather than to the whole range of pollinators?

Huw Irranca-Davies: We expect a significant proportion to go towards honey bees. It depends on the analysis that is currently being done, as we need to make decisions on the best available evidence. We certainly share the feeling that the health of the honey bee population is a significant indicator of biodiversity and, by implication, of our own quality of life.

Common Land

Barry Sheerman: What recent representations he has received on his Department's policy on common land in England.

Huw Irranca-Davies: My officials have regular meetings with stakeholders representing common land. Indeed, my hon. Friend and I share an interest in areas that we know well, including Fairwood common on the Gower and other areas in my constituency. The national common land stakeholder group will hold a meeting on 18 June, which more than 30 organisations have been invited to attend. We have also received a number of representations in response to our plans on the implementation of the Commons Act 2006.

Barry Sheerman: In the 30 years that you, Mr. Speaker, and I have been in this House, I have learned that you are as passionate about Robbie Burns as I am about John Clare. John Clare was forced to work on the enclosures that took the English common land away from the English common people. Since 1870, half of the common land that was left at that time has been lost. What are we doing to preserve common land? Why cannot we do the same as the Scots and start to take our common land back and give it over to community use and to the common people?

Huw Irranca-Davies: My hon. Friend has been a ceaseless advocate of common land and of the work of John Clare. The Commons Act 2006 represented a big step forward and, by October 2012, we will have turned the clock back a little in my hon. Friend's constituency by enabling many of the commons that were refused registration under the Commons Registration Act 1965 to be given a fresh chance for registration. I know that he will take that opportunity to encourage his constituents to make representations in this regard. I share his lament, however, and I can do no more than say:
	"O words are poor receipts for what time hath stole away,
	The ancient pulpit trees and the play.
	When for school oer Little Field with its brook and wooden brig,
	Where I swaggered like a man though I was not half so big".
	Those are the words of John Clare.

Richard Ottaway: On behalf of the House, may I thank the Minister for his contribution to poetry week?

Andrew Robathan: Encore!

Richard Ottaway: Will the deputy Chief Whip just shut up? This is the luxury of a half-empty House.
	An illustration of the good use of common land is to be found uniquely in Croydon, where, under 19th century legislation, the Corporation of London took over the ownership and management of common land. I hasten to emphasise that I have no complaint about that arrangement, but its defect is that accountability for the running of the land lies with the council, while the users have no recourse to the ballot box if a problem arises, as it has in the past. When the Minister looks into the effectiveness of the 2006 Act, will he take that fact into account and try to assess how that democratic defect can be addressed?

Huw Irranca-Davies: The hon. Gentleman raises a very good point, and I shall be more than happy to meet him to discuss this matter further and to see whether we can do anything. Perhaps we can share a cup of coffee in the Tea Room— [ Interruption. ] And a what?

Andrew Robathan: And a poem!

Pig Industry

Paddy Tipping: What recent discussions he has had with representatives of the farming sector on the future of the English pig industry.

Jane Kennedy: I met Mr. Stuart Houston, the chairman of the National Pig Association, at Morrisons' new abattoir in Spalding, which I was privileged to open last week. We discussed the progress of the pigmeat supply chain taskforce, whose first meeting my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State opened on 18 March 2009. The taskforce brings together key representatives from all sectors in the pigmeat supply chain, and I have subsequently spoken with several taskforce members.

Paddy Tipping: Has the Minister seen the figure that suggests that 60 per cent. of imported pigmeat does not meet the same animal welfare standards as the pigmeat produced here? Rather than complaining about costs, should we not use this to our advantage and work with producers and retailers to achieve better labelling and to promote the best pigmeat in Europe?

Jane Kennedy: I entirely agree. There is ample evidence that British consumers actively choose products that have been raised to higher welfare standards. For example, sales of free range eggs continue to grow, even in the challenging economic climate in which we find ourselves. One of the sub-groups of the taskforce that we have established will examine the role of labelling and investigate the progress that we could make through greater transparency to ensure that British consumers are not misled by labels that allow produce raised to lower welfare standards being passed off as British.

Graham Stuart: Holderness in my constituency has historically been the home of pig farming in England but, like most of the country, it has seen a collapse in production over the past 12 years. Pig farmers in my constituency will welcome what the Minister has just said about labelling, but they are frustrated that this has taken so long. We have a taskforce now, but it has been clear for a long time that meat from abroad that does not meet our welfare standards can none the less, after having a bit of work done to it, be sold as British meat. We must ensure that we reduce the regulations for our farmers so that their high-welfare meat can be properly labelled and thus attract the higher price that it deserves.

Jane Kennedy: I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I have met a probably quite significant number of his constituents who have made that very point. That is why the work of this taskforce will be very important. I note his lament that we did not get working sooner than we did, but I assure him that the taskforce is very focused on bringing about practical outcomes that will materially assist pig farmers to counter the damaging imports of products that are then passed off as British products.

Richard Benyon: I refer hon. Members to my entry in the register. The Government have been promising this for 10 years. At the Oxford farming conference in January, the Secretary of State said:
	"A pork pie made in Britain from Danish pork can legitimately be labelled as a British pork pie. That's a nonsense, and it needs to change."
	He went on to say that discussions with supermarkets were taking place and that a voluntary agreement would be made. We know, because the supermarkets have said it, that there is no voluntary agreement in sight. For all the Minister's talk of taskforces and meetings, we know that this is just more talk and no action. Is it not time that the Government took another look at our honest food campaign and adopted it today?

Jane Kennedy: I have followed the campaign with interest and I welcome the fact that it is raising the profile of British produce and expressing concerns about the potential for British customers to be misled. I do not feel challenged by it in the way the hon. Gentleman might hope, however, because I believe that the actions we are taking will lead to real proposals that will bring about material differences for the pig sector. What we have to do is work not just with pig farmers but with the whole supply chain so that each part of the chain, including British consumers, takes on board its responsibilities to ensure that where choice is exercised, it works to the benefit of British farmers.

Bovine Tuberculosis

Michael Jack: What recent steps his Department has taken to combat the spread of bovine tuberculosis; and if he will make a statement.

Hilary Benn: The TB eradication group was set up in November 2008 to make recommendations on a plan to reduce bovine TB in England and move towards eventual eradication. Alongside our current control measures, we are developing vaccines for cattle and wildlife through research and the development of the badger vaccine deployment project.

Michael Jack: I thank the Secretary of State for his courteous answer. He will be aware of the continuing and mounting concern at the spread of bovine TB—and not just within the cattle population. Last year, for example, 119 cases of the disease were found in animals as widespread as cats, dogs, alpacas and goats. In view of the Secretary of State's reply, particularly on vaccination, will he tell me whether he has yet reached a conclusion? What will happen when diseased badgers are captured in the course of the vaccination process? Has he found a way of testing those animals to dispatch those that clearly have bovine TB?

Hilary Benn: The right hon. Gentleman's point about the emergence of the disease in other animals might be partly explained by the fact that bovine TB was made a notifiable disease only in 2006; we do not know the full extent of its incidence previously, so one would expect more reporting in view of that change. Secondly, it remains the case—despite best efforts—that there is no reliable in-field test, which answers the right hon. Gentleman's question about badgers with TB. Clearly, however, one thing that will have to be looked at in developing the deployment project is how to deal with the problem he raised, which he has discussed with me previously. Identifying in the field a badger with TB, as opposed to one without it, is not quite as easy as some argue.

David Heath: There can be nothing more distressing to a dairy farmer than seeing the destruction of a herd as a result of positive testing for TB. That is made even worse, however, when asymptomatic cattle tested positive solely on the basis of the gamma interferon test, and the Department refuses to allow a confirmatory test to establish whether the cattle have TB but simply goes ahead with the destruction of the cattle. How can that possibly be sensible for public health policy or, indeed, given that compensation has to be paid, for the Exchequer?

Hilary Benn: I understand, as do all hon. Members, the traumatic impact that bovine TB has on farmers with affected stock. The gamma interferon test is a valuable addition to our armoury in attempting to deal with this disease. The skin test and the gamma interferon test have different qualities and it is right that we should use the latter alongside the former. It is not always the case that lesions can be found post mortem, but that does not mean that the animals do not have TB. There is a difference in the specificity and the sensitivity of the two tests. I have looked carefully at the issue and I think that the gamma interferon test should be part of the armoury, but I understand completely farmers' feelings when apparently healthy animals are culled.

Topical Questions

David Taylor: If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

Hilary Benn: The Department's responsibility is to enable us all to live within our environmental means. The Rural Payments Agency has now made full single payment scheme payments to more than 102,000 farmers. That represents 96.2 per cent. of total claims and 96.5 per cent. of the total fund. The RPA is working to make the remaining payments as soon as possible.

David Taylor: There have long been pre-stunning requirements for animals slaughtered for food, but exemptions have been made for religious slaughter, mainly affecting halal and the slaughter of lambs. Will the Minister come to a meeting that I have organised after the recess to view a video produced by EBLEX—the English Beef and Lamb Executive—that shows the effects of such slaughter? It cannot be allowed to continue and we must end those exemptions. It is cruel, unacceptable and antediluvian. We must make progress on this issue, and I hope that the Minister will be able to attend the meeting that I have organised.

Jane Kennedy: I will be happy—perhaps that is not the right word—to come to the meeting and view the video, although I shall do so with a sinking heart. My visit to an abattoir for pigs and cattle last week sharpened my awareness of the issues. We have a long tradition of religious tolerance, which has led to the exemptions that my hon. Friend mentions, but I will come to the meeting and I will talk with him about diary arrangements. I am aware that this is an issue of acute concern across the UK.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We only have 10 minutes for topical questions, so questions and replies need to be brief.

Peter Bone: In the golden age of Prime Minister Blair, back in June 2005, he said that the EU rebate was directly linked to common agricultural policy reform. That was four years ago. Does the Secretary of State really believe that that has been achieved?

Hilary Benn: As I indicated in answer to the hon. Gentleman's earlier question, we continue to work hard to try to reform the CAP. There is a wider debate about the size of the European Union budget, and that will come up again when the next financial perspectives are debated. As always, the Government will seek to achieve the most effective expenditure of EU funding, and there will be a discussion about the contribution of different EU member states.

John Barrett: The Secretary of State will be aware of the millions of pounds that the scrap metal industry has invested to recycle scrapped cars efficiently, but that industry's certificate of destruction is not acceptable under the Government's new scrappage scheme, so it cannot play its part in increasing the number of cars recycled. Will he or his Ministers meet representatives of the industry to see how they can increase the volume of cars being recycled?

Jane Kennedy: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that problem. I am happy to meet him and representatives of the industry, as he suggests.

Barry Sheerman: Will my right hon. Friend meet me and Jody Scheckter, the former Formula 1 racing champion, who has a sustainable farm at Laverstoke park in Hampshire? He is trying to get an anaerobic digester, as well as composting to the finest level, but he cannot get an anaerobic digester in this country and is on a two-year waiting list to get one from Germany.

Jane Kennedy: I am surprised that he cannot get one. I would be very interested to know the reasons for it being blocked. It is clearly a new technology—actually, it is not that new—that we have to embrace and we are seeking to encourage it at every level. I would be delighted to talk to my hon. Friend and possibly to visit the farmer whom he talked about.

Ann Winterton: How has New Zealand been able to reduce over a 10-year period the number of TB-infected herds from levels similar to our own to being close to TB-free?

Hilary Benn: Each country has taken a different approach, but if the hon. Lady is raising the issue of culling, I noted with interest the recent remarks of the Opposition spokesperson on this subject. I was slightly disappointed that what he put out made no reference at all to the 10-year study that involved culling 11,000 badgers and the conclusions of the independent scientific group report. If we are going to deal with this problem, as we are all determined to do, we must have regard to the evidence about what works and what does not work. What we are seeking to do, in particular by developing vaccines, is to find an effective method of dealing with the problem. As the independent scientific group study in the UK reported—the study was carried out over 10 years—culling has been shown not to meaningfully contribute to the control of bovine TB.

Mary Creagh: Hon. Members will remember the tragic death of Archie-Lee Hirst, who was savaged to death by his family rottweiler over the Christmas holidays in 2007-08. Has my right hon. Friend had a chance to look at the private Member's Bill promoted by our hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) with the support of the Communication Workers Union and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals? It aims to make owners responsible for keeping their dogs under control even on private property. Will my right hon. Friend make a statement on that?

Jane Kennedy: I met our hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) and representatives of the CWU earlier this week. I am studying both her Bill and the Bill that is being debated in the other place. I appreciate the public concern, but a raft of measures is already in place. We need better enforcement and we are encouraging greater enforcement. I do not have a closed mind on either Bill and I am studying them carefully.

Michael Jack: It has emerged in the last 48 hours that one of my constituents has removed 50 ft of sand dunes in St. Anne's to improve the view from his house. It turns out that that is a legal act and, from inquiries with English Heritage, it seems that it does not have any powers to deal with this removal of an important coastal feature, with all its impact on biodiversity. Will the Secretary of State have early discussions with English Heritage to rectify this problem?

Huw Irranca-Davies: This matter has come to my attention and I am pleased that the right hon. Gentleman has raised it. We do not know the full particulars of the story, because it has only come to our attention within the past 24 to 36 hours. I am more than happy to investigate and to speak to the necessary bodies and authorities to get to the bottom of this and to see the best way forward. We all share his concern for the protection of one of our most valuable resources—the natural environment.

Dennis Skinner: Now that it appears that my right hon. Friend is going to deal with Jody Scheckter's problem with his anaerobic digester, there is a farmer in my constituency—I will not give his name, but I have already written to her about the matter—who wants some help, too. His only claim to fame in the sporting field, compared with that of Jody Scheckter, is that he has a grandson who is a national hunt jockey. Can she help?

Jane Kennedy: Irrespective of the sporting prowess of those who are seeking to establish anaerobic digestion on their premises, I am working very hard with DEFRA officials and the regional development organisations that are responsible for channelling the funding for such projects to ensure that they get exactly the help that my hon. Friend seeks.

Andrew Rosindell: The Secretary of State may be aware that we are soon to launch the friends of the River Rom group in Romford. It will be a community organisation of local activists working to enhance and restore pride in our local river, from which our town gets its name. What support does the Department give to groups working in the local community to ensure that rivers are properly looked after and maintained, and restored to their former glory?

Hilary Benn: I am absolutely delighted to hear that the hon. Gentleman's local community is taking that initiative. We need a lot more like it, and I would give such schemes every encouragement. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary is looking at what further practical assistance we might be able to give, but the fact that local communities are taking such a close interest in our rivers and looking after such a vital resource is evidence of a growing awareness of the contribution that biodiversity and water make to our society. The more people take an interest, the better chance we have that rivers will be better looked after and that further improvements in water quality will result.

SOLICITOR-GENERAL

The Solicitor-General was asked—

Human Trafficking

Anthony Steen: What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Crown Prosecution Service in bringing prosecutions in cases of alleged human trafficking offences.

Peter Bone: What her most recent assessment is of the effectiveness of the Crown Prosecution Service in prosecuting cases of alleged human trafficking.

Vera Baird: The provisions of the Council of Europe convention improve training and guidance to front-line law enforcement officers and increase our ability to identify victims and bring more cases to justice. As more cases are investigated by the police, the CPS can improve the numbers of cases that are prosecuted. The figures for trafficking prosecutions over the past three years are as follows: 40 in 2006-07, 87 in 2007-08, and 114 in 2008-09.

Anthony Steen: In spite of the wholly unjustifiable attack on me by  The Daily Telegraph that has resulted in my standing down at the next election, I want to reassure the House that I will continue to fight against the evils of human trafficking as long as I am here.
	Is the Solicitor-General aware of the sentences given recently to two traffickers in Devon convicted of trafficking a 19-year-old girl from the Czech Republic? The judge gave one of them one year for running a brothel, and the other a year for trafficking and a year for running a brothel, even though the brothel had been running the trade with the Czech Republic for many years and in spite of the fact that the maximum sentence for trafficking is 14 years. Will the Solicitor-General therefore increase the training offered to judges—including Crown Court judges—as many have little experience of human trafficking cases or of the horrors of human trafficking for the young people concerned? The effect on victims is devastating, so can she ensure that traffickers are punished appropriately? One year is not enough.

Vera Baird: We shall miss the hon. Gentleman enormously when he stands down. He has taken a powerful interest in this issue, and he has a lot to be proud of in the work that he has done in driving our agenda forward. I think that he may have raised the case to which he refers with other Ministers, and we have treated his inquiry as a request for me to consider whether the sentence may have been unduly lenient. I have sent for the papers, because the time expires very soon, and they should be with me today. If the case is referred, the Court of Appeal is likely to give some general guidance about the right approach for judges.

Peter Bone: I too should like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) for the way in which he chairs the all-party group on human trafficking and for keeping the matter to the fore. I also pay tribute to the Solicitor-General for what she has done, but does she agree that many in the CPS think that the law on human trafficking is so badly drafted that it is extremely difficult to get prosecutions? Would it be worth revisiting that law to see whether it could be better drafted?

Vera Baird: I am not so sure that there is a recognition that the law is badly drafted, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, but of course we keep it under review as we go along. We implemented the terms of the convention only in April, and the national referral mechanism is being put in place now, which means that we have a way to go in increasing our understanding. Clearly, we will look at sentences if they are not proving adequate in the meantime, but prosecution levels do seem to be improving. I think that I am right in saying that the Director of Public Prosecutions is going to the all-party trafficking group in June, and the hon. Gentleman will be able to ask him detailed questions then.

Keith Vaz: May I join the Solicitor-General in paying tribute to the enormous work that the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) has done? No one has done more than he has in raising this issue, and that is why the Home Affairs Committee asked him to be a special adviser for our recent report on human trafficking. In that report, we called for an increase in funding for the Metropolitan police's human trafficking unit, because we cannot prosecute the perpetrators unless we catch them.
	The Government, as we know, were ceasing funding for that unit. Yesterday, the Prime Minister, in answer to me, said that funding was going to be increased. Is this new money that is to be made available to the unit? If it is, that is a very good news story.

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I appeal to the House? I have a duty to get down the Order Paper, and I cannot do that if there are many speeches encompassed in questions.

Vera Baird: I have to be honest; I cannot tell my right hon. Friend whether it is new money or not, but I also heard what the Prime Minister said and it is obviously a welcome change of mind. I think we are starting to resource anti-trafficking better and better. We have recently given some more money to the POPPY project, which looks after victims of trafficking, and the UK Human Trafficking Centre is reasonably well resourced now and is becoming increasingly effective, so I think that we are funding more in the right direction now.

Nicholas Winterton: The Solicitor-General will know that many of the young women who are being trafficked and abused come from eastern Europe. What help are we getting from the Governments of the countries in eastern Europe, perhaps to prevent these young women from coming here, as a result of which they are trafficked and abused? Surely the countries of origin could give us some help.

Vera Baird: Yes, I know that the UK Human Trafficking Centre is establishing a network of contacts in all the relevant countries from which the preponderance of victims comes. As with many other crimes, such as those involving drugs mules, we have gone out to the original locations and persuaded people there that it is a very bad idea to behave in that way. I believe that we will have an analogous approach to countries from which a lot of victims of trafficking are now coming here.

Jonathan Djanogly: I also acknowledge the great efforts for a long time of my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) in acting against this evil trade.
	I return to the question asked by the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz). Having listened to what the Prime Minister said yesterday, I think the Solicitor-General will understand that it was more than just a question of money. The Prime Minister said, effectively, that the Government would not be shutting down the Metropolitan police's human trafficking centre, but in November 2008 the Home Office stated that it would be closing it down. Why, again, is one arm of Government saying one thing and the other arm of Government saying another? What is the position, please?

Vera Baird: The position is as the Prime Minister has made very clear, and there is nothing to add to that. The hon. Gentleman always wastes his opportunities at this question session. What is clear is that a decision was taken in November, and now we are in May and reconsideration is being given to that position, very clearly, very properly and very sensibly. Actually the hon. Gentleman should be praising us, not trying to cause difficulties.

Victim and Witness Support

Hugh Bayley: What steps the Crown Prosecution Service is taking in co-operation with other agencies to improve support for victims and witnesses in the court system.

Vera Baird: There are now 150 joint police and Crown Prosecution Service witness care units, whose role is to provide support to victims and witnesses in the criminal justice system. The recently published "Joint Thematic Review of Victim and Witness Experiences in the Criminal Justice System" found that about 80 per cent. of victims and witnesses are satisfied with their experience of the justice system.

Hugh Bayley: When constituents complain to me about drug dealers in their neighbourhood, they are often scared to give evidence because they fear reprisals. What reassurance can my hon. and learned Friend give them that they will be kept safe if they appear in court, and remain safe when they go back to their homes, if they give evidence against drug dealers?

Vera Baird: My hon. Friend raises a most important point. A priority is to provide consistent, multi-agency support to people who are courageous enough to come forward. Of course, the police lead on that. That support enables intimidated witnesses to remain safely in their community, if we can build structures around them, but it is not impossible to move someone if that is essential. At court, special measures have been introduced to help vulnerable and intimidated witnesses, such as giving evidence from behind screens, and being able to testify by television link from a place that could be some distance away from the court. About a third of witnesses would not have been willing or able to give evidence if those measures had not been available; that seems to be testimony that they are working quite well.

David Howarth: The Solicitor-General will recall that the witness and victim experience survey last year said that two thirds of victims in cases where the offender pleaded guilty at court did not realise that that had happened. One third of those victims actually thought that their offender had been let off completely. What is the Crown Prosecution Service doing to correct that situation? Does the Solicitor-General agree that one of the many advantages of restorative justice, on which the Government still seem to be dragging their feet, is that as part of the process, the victim always knows what has happened to the offender, because the victim takes part in deciding what should happen to the offender?

Vera Baird: There is no dragging of feet on restorative justice. The hon. Gentleman must be aware of a number of pilots that are ongoing. The witness and victim experience survey came out, as the hon. Gentleman said, last year. Of course, everybody learns lessons from the surveys; that is their purpose. The CPS now has joint witness care units with the police. One of the roles of those units is to keep the public involved in what is happening in a case. I am confident that when we look at the next WAVE survey, we will find a significant improvement.

Tony Lloyd: What can my hon. and learned Friend do to assist victims in extremely complicated cases, often where extreme violence has been used, that take an awful long time to be dealt with by the CPS and to get to court? That puts the victim at risk, and it really is justice denied if justice is delayed for as long as it sometimes is in such cases.

Vera Baird: I am not sure that the CPS is rightly pinpointed as a significant cause of delay in the criminal justice system. There are listing problems and quite long tailbacks at many Crown courts. That capacity issue is more likely, in my view, to be a cause of delay than the CPS. All the practical measures to which I have already referred are, of course, available in such cases, and there is a very good system now in which police officers attach themselves to a victim, particularly when the victim has undergone a traumatic experience. They ensure that all the counselling that is necessary is made available to the victim, and basically try to support them through the process, so that however long it takes, the victim always has a friend with them. That will improve outcomes, and also make people feel that the justice system cares about them.

Cohabitation Bill

Mary Creagh: If she will make an estimate of the potential effect on the Law Officers' Department's budgets of implementing the proposals of the Cohabitation Bill.

Vera Baird: The Government are not aware of any impact on the Law Officers' departmental budget as a result of the implementation of the Cohabitation Bill, which I understand is wholly about the post-relationship organisation of finances, and does not really touch on the Law Officers' functions.

Mary Creagh: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for that reply. I am delighted to hear that the proposal will not have any impact on her Department's budget, but may I ask her to emphasise to our right hon. and hon. Friends in the Ministry of Justice that the Cohabitation Bill, which is being supported by Lord Lester in the other place and by me, has as its aim and intention a fairer distribution of family income, and the prevention of women and their children being left destitute at the end of a family relationship? She has a long history as a champion of people's rights, and I hope that I can count on her in pursuing that cause.

Vera Baird: Flattery will get my hon. Friend everywhere, so I will readily pledge support for her measure, but it does not, in truth, affect our Department at all. Of course, if I have an opportunity, I will make sure that Ministry of Justice Ministers understand that she has my support.

Rape

Julie Morgan: What steps the Crown Prosecution Service is taking to increase rape conviction rates.

Vera Baird: Joint guidance—the first of its kind—for police and prosecutors about investigating and prosecuting rape has been introduced. The Association of Chief Police Officers-Crown Prosecution Service team is visiting all police forces and CPS areas, reinforcing ongoing CPS performance monitoring.

Julie Morgan: Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the development of sexual abuse referral centres, such as the one that we now have in Cardiff, in which legal agencies, health and caring professions can all work together, are likely to result in an increase in the conviction rate?

Vera Baird: Yes, I agree. In Cleveland, we have a sexual assault referral centre and a system of independent sexual violence advisers who befriend and support complainants. It is imperative that there is good co-operation, as there is in Cleveland, between the police, led by Chief Constable Sean Price and the chair of the police authority, Dave McLuckie, who both ensure that we have a top-quality SARC, and the Crown Prosecution Service, so that rape complainants can have, as it were, all-through support and be passed when necessary from sympathetic hand to sympathetic hand. We have quite good results in Cleveland on relative levels of rape conviction, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right—the way to improve them is to increase the number of SARCs, as we are doing, and to ensure that the good practice in her area and in mine is spread nationally.

ROYAL ASSENT

Mr. Speaker: I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that Her Majesty has signified her Royal Assent to the following Act:
	Industry and Exports (Financial Support) Act 2009.

Business of the House

Alan Duncan: May I ask the Leader of the House to give us the forthcoming business?

Harriet Harman: The business for next week will be as follows.  [ Interruption. ] The business for next week will be Members of Parliament engaging with their constituents. The business for the week beginning 1 June will be as follows:
	Monday 1 June—Second Reading of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [ Lords].
	Tuesday 2 June—Second Reading of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [ Lords].
	Wednesday 3 June—There will be a general debate on stroke services, following which the Chairman of Ways and Means has named opposed private business for consideration.
	Thursday 4 June—Topical debate: subject to be announced, followed by a general debate on defence in the world.
	The provisional business for the week commencing 8 June will include:
	Monday 8 June—Second Reading of the Health Bill [ Lords].
	I would also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 4, 11 and 18 June will be:
	Thursday 4 June—A debate on road safety.
	Thursday 11 June—A debate on the report from the Home Affairs Committee entitled "Policing for the 21st century".
	Thursday 18 June—A debate on the report from the Environmental Audit Committee on personal carbon trading.

Alan Duncan: May I thank the right hon. and learned Lady for giving us the business for the week after next and thereafter? May I also say that the House will be pleased that the Home Secretary is to make a statement on the Government's decision on the Gurkhas? Many will wait with serious interest to hear what she will say shortly.
	I think that all Members recognise that the events of the past few weeks have profoundly shaken the House. The outpouring of fury that we have witnessed has been almost like a spring revolution, but I believe it is a hope shared by all of us that it will make us think deeply about how this place works and provide us with the opportunity to begin a new chapter for Parliament. Does the right hon. and learned Lady agree that even if we succeed in sorting out some of our immediate problems, there is a much deeper malaise in our system of politics that needs to be addressed, and we need to discuss that in the House. The truth is that the House has been sidelined for years; it struggles to keep pace with the speed of events; in its primary duty of scrutinising the Executive, it often fails; law is rammed on to the statute book through a vexatious use of timetabling; and too few people, both inside and outside, have faith in, or even understand, its processes. With the public clamour for reform now at its loudest for years, will the right hon. and learned Lady agree to an extensive series of debates so that some of the most serious and thorough arguments can be aired inside the House, not just outside it?
	My understanding of the outcome of meetings held recently to discuss the policing of the vicinity of Parliament is that what is required to cut through the legal muddle that governs this is a short Bill that will abolish bits of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 and then submit Parliament square and the vicinity once again to the power of a perhaps amended public order Act. Will the right hon. and learned Lady make a statement urgently on her plans to take action and tell the House when and how she might introduce the necessary legislation to solve this continuing problem?
	Will the right hon. and learned Lady reflect on the timing of the defence debate, which at the moment is scheduled for 4 June, which is the day of the local and European elections? Surely it cannot be right that on the day that the nation's attention is directed to the polling booth, the House is expected to debate all the serious challenges that face us, from conflict in Afghanistan to piracy off Somalia. Does she not agree that it is unacceptable to downgrade defence matters in this way? May I respectfully ask her to consider whether she can reschedule that debate?
	May we also have a statement on what appears to be the mismatch between the Government's claims and the actual facts surrounding the potential purchase of Eurofighter Typhoon jets for the RAF? That was spun by the Prime Minister as a done deal for the United Kingdom, but it has since become clear that not only is there no firm commitment for a third batch of the aircraft, but there are also huge question marks over the ensuing support costs. I have raised before the unwillingness of Ministers to provide the House with a statement on the Government's delay of the carrier programme, and once again it does rather seem that the Secretary of State for Defence is declining to come to the House to face serious questions on a procurement issue of such vital strategic significance. May we now be assured that he will do so?
	On the subject of procurement, may we have a debate or a statement on the Government's guidance on procurement decisions and policy for the 2012 Olympics? One of the benefits of having the Olympics in London is that large contracts are up for grabs that many businesses can rightly try to take advantage of. We appreciate that there are European tendering rules, but is the right hon. and learned Lady aware that some small British firms have been prevented even from bidding for contracts following the constricted tendering criteria established by the Government? Does she not agree that it is unfortunate that, in the middle of the worst recession that this country has seen for decades, some small and medium-sized enterprises feel excluded from what should be a significant and merited commercial opportunity?
	May I take this opportunity to offer you, Mr. Speaker, the right hon. and learned Lady and the House a happy—I should say happier—Whitsun recess? Perhaps we need to remember—the Deputy Leader of the House is an expert on these matters—that we are meant to be celebrating the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of tongues of fire and inspiration. We are all in need of a bit of inspiration at the moment, and perhaps as a result we can all once again harness those flames to become apostles for a better working democracy.

Harriet Harman: I thank the shadow Leader of the House for his comments. He referred to the statement on the Gurkhas, and although people may say that Parliament has no power, the Gurkhas debate and the vote of the House to which the Government are responding, is a significant example of the will of the House impressing itself on the Government.
	Bearing in mind that there is a big debate in the country, the hon. Gentleman rightly asked when the House will have an opportunity to play its part in the important debate about how we rethink the relationship between Parliament and the people. Following on from all the action that has been taken and looking to the future, we will find opportunities for the House to debate those wider issues. But I would not want him or anyone else to lose sight of the important changes that have already been made. Looking back over the past 10 years, the people of Scotland have been given the right to choose whether they have their own Parliament and the right to elect their Parliament. The people of London have been given the right to have a mayor that they elect themselves.
	People have been given the right to more information through the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and their rights have been given more protection through the Human Rights Act 1998. In the House, debates and questions are more up to date, because we have topical debates and topical questions. We should see the current situation as an opportunity to build on the progress that we have made; I do not think that we should say, "The whole system has not been improving and therefore we need to start afresh." We should rebuild the trust and confidence in Parliament that have been battered by the issue of allowances, and take this as an opportunity to make further progress. Parliament, as a whole, will need to be at the centre of those debates, and I shall ensure that we make that time available.
	The hon. Gentleman talked about the policing of Parliament square, and he will know that, last week, Mr. Speaker convened a meeting of all responsible authorities. The Government stand ready to take any action that arises from the meeting not only to assist the right to demonstrate but to enable freedom of movement in the square for tourists, passers-by and, indeed, parliamentarians.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about a number of defence issues, Eurofighter among them. We have Defence questions on the Monday that we return from the recess, we had a defence procurement debate recently and, as he pointed out, there will be a defence debate during the week that we return. The day in question is a sitting day, and it is always difficult when the House is sitting and the nation is voting in elections to a body other than Parliament. The forthcoming elections are important, so we did not seek to put on whipped business. That was not done with any disrespect to the important issues of defence, and there will be future opportunities to debate defence, which we know is always an important consideration for the House.
	On the question of the Olympics, I shall refer the hon. Gentleman's points to the Minister for the Olympics. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that capital investment from the public sector provides important commercial opportunities, and that is why we believe that Conservative party proposals to cut public capital investment would create problems because there would be a great deal fewer commercial opportunities all round.

Angela Smith: On 30 April, Mr. Speaker, you gave me the opportunity to have a debate on the Adjournment of the House, after Visteon closed its three UK manufacturing plants, leaving workers in Basildon, Enfield and Belfast with no jobs, no redundancy settlement and fearful for their pensions. May I update you, Mr. Speaker? Following the debate that you allowed, a campaign by Unite and help from the Ford motor company, those workers now have their redundancy settlements and, on Monday this week, were able to leave the picket lines having achieved their aims on being made redundant.
	Following my research into the issue, however, it became clear that the company's closure had nothing at all to do with the recession; it had never, ever made a profit. Indeed, it has come to light that companies are using the recession as a way of changing the terms and conditions of their staff, even when those firms have not been affected by the recession. Will the Leader of the House join me in raising that issue with all Ministers? Furthermore, does she think it an appropriate matter that the House should debate?

Harriet Harman: I shall raise my hon. Friend's comments with my right hon. and noble Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. I pay tribute to her work in defending those who worked at Visteon in her constituency. When companies face difficult times, whether because of the recession or for any reason, it is important that they work closely with the trade unions, which represent the workers whose fate is obviously tied up with that of the company. I pay tribute to Unite and its work in protecting the Visteon workers. We, of course, have created a wider package of assistance for the automotive industry, as well as introduced provisions to allow all companies to defer their tax to help with cash flow, provided tax credits for those on short-time working and support for apprenticeships.

David Heath: May I also welcome in anticipation the Home Secretary's statement on the Gurkhas? I hope that it will say what we all hope it will say: that the Government accept the will of the House. I look forward to a similar statement eventually on Equitable Life, so that we repay that debt of honour, too.
	I am glad that the hon. Member for Basildon (Angela E. Smith) raised economic issues in her constituency, because while we concentrate on what we are doing in this House we must not forget that there is an awful recession going on out there. People are losing their jobs, houses and livelihoods; we must make space for deliberations on that important issue.
	Given the difficulties that we have all had in recent weeks, may I express my thanks to all the staff, families and spouses of Members of Parliament? They are getting criticism that is often entirely unjustified in respect of the MP with whom they are associated, and they are having to deal with abusive letters and phone calls. They have no part in what Members of this House have done, and we owe them a debt of thanks.

Eleanor Laing: Or what Members have not done.

David Heath: That is absolutely right; I thought that I had made that plain.
	I echo what the shadow Leader of the House said about the opportunity that we now have to do something of greater importance for the House; I hope that we will set aside time to do it in the next few weeks. We have a light legislative programme. We have the opportunity to debate what the right hon. and learned Lady herself said yesterday was set to change and strengthen our democracy. That means that we need to look at how we do things in the House. For example, 99 clauses of the Policing and Crime Bill were never debated. That is not the way to scrutinise legislation. We must find ways to use our time effectively and rebalance the relationship between the House and the Executive. We must find time to debate the changing of our constitutional arrangements, because there is unfinished business. The right hon. and learned Lady says that things have been done, and that is true. However, there is the unfinished business of House of Lords reform, party funding and the size of both Houses. We need to debate those issues.
	Lastly, we need time to change our democratic processes, reinforce accountability and make the House more representative of the people whom we serve. If we use our time in that way, the country will realise that the House still has relevance and a determination to change for the better.

Harriet Harman: This morning, people will have heard from both sides of the House that we all agree that the allowances situation should be sorted out right away and that we should seize the opportunity to strengthen the role of Parliament in our democracy. That makes this a very important moment. It is important to deal with the problems, but we also have this moment of opportunity, which we should seize on behalf of the House.
	The hon. Gentleman said, airily, that we have had a light legislative programme, but that is not the case. I have just announced the Second Reading of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill and of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill. Furthermore, the Health Bill has been announced this week, and we have just discussed the Policing and Crime Bill and the Equality Bill. I do not think it right to say that there is a light legislative programme; we are debating and scrutinising important issues.
	I associate myself with the hon. Gentleman's comments about House of Commons staff and the families of Members. Everybody wants us to sort the situation out and everybody will be glad when we have. The hon. Gentleman talked about Equitable Life. As he will know, earlier this week there was a debate on Equitable Life; the Minister updated the House on where we are in respect of action on that issue. I refer the hon. Gentleman to the  Hansard report of that debate.

Patrick Hall: On the reform of parliamentary allowances, my right hon. and learned Friend has often repeated that we do not want the House to be filled only with the rich—or, I would add, only with the sponsored. Does she agree that at some point soon, when, hopefully, things calm down, we might all benefit from reflecting on one of the initiatives announced in Mr. Speaker's statement on Monday? I am thinking of the cap on mortgage interest rate and rental claims at £1,250 per month, with the intention that that be reduced in future. Does that not risk putting staying overnight in London beyond the reach of most people, thereby putting off the chances of citizens of this country who wish to become Members of the House?

Harriet Harman: Two very important points arise from what my hon. Friend says. First, we all regard the constituency link as extremely important. When people are elected to represent their constituency, they need to be able to keep in close touch with their constituency and also to work in the House of Commons, which means that they need to be able to live in two places at once. The constituency link is very important, and the Kelly committee will strongly bear that in mind. I should add that there is an opportunity for all individual Members to give evidence to Sir Christopher Kelly and the Committee on Standards in Public Life.
	My hon. Friend also reinforces the point that we do not want to turn the clock back to previous centuries when more or less only landowners and the landed gentry were in Parliament. We do not want to have a Parliament just for millionaires: we need to ensure that we have our own equivalent of "From Log Cabin to White House" and that anybody can come into the House of Commons.

Peter Lilley: Will the Leader of the House grant us an early debate on how we can curtail the powers of local councils to fulfil the house building targets by seeking planning permission to build in the territory of other local authorities? That possibility arises in my constituency, where Luton and South Bedfordshire council is planning to meet its housing totals by building houses in my constituency. To make matters worse, it plans to do so in the most beautiful area known as, eponymously and anatomically, Lilley Bottom.

Harriet Harman: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman can raise that directly with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government during the Second Reading of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill on Monday 1 June.

Barry Sheerman: Does my right hon. and learned Friend realise that this is the 30th anniversary of the introduction of Select Committees? Ten years ago, when Lord Sheldon, as he now is, chaired the Liaison Committee, he introduced a piece of work called "Shifting the Balance", which tried to shift the balance away from the Executive and back to the legislature. Could we have an early debate on that topic? I speak as someone who tried to participate in last night's debate in the Chamber, when we saw once again the domination of the Front Benchers, who not only made long speeches but then intervened afterwards, with Back Benchers' contributions to the debate squeezed almost to nothing. Is it not about time that we had a shift in the balance of power in the Chamber?

Harriet Harman: Everyone has agreed that one of the things that strengthens the role of Parliament is the work of Select Committees and that of hon. Members who chair them and play a part in them. I feel absolutely certain that as we look to strengthening people's confidence in how this House scrutinises the Executive, the role of Select Committees is set to be strengthened once again.

Nicholas Winterton: In supporting the shadow Leader of the House, the Liberal Democrat shadow Leader of the House and the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), does the Leader of the House consider it to be the appropriate time to make this Parliament—this Palace of Westminster, particularly this House of Commons—more relevant? Is it not time that we looked again at programming, and at setting up a business committee of representative Back-Bench Members, who would be elected by this House, perhaps under the chairmanship of the Chairman of Ways and Means, as well as considered the merging of the Modernisation Committee with the Procedure Committee? That would make this House more powerful, give it credibility and increase its integrity.

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman and others are taking the opportunity to set forth the items that will need to be considered in more detail as we look to strengthen the House in future. No doubt the Procedure Committee and the work of the business managers will be considered as part of that process.

Siobhain McDonagh: Today's edition of  The Times reports that despite the desperate conditions in Sri Lanka, the last remaining independent organisation, the International Committee of the Red Cross, is leaving the country because it cannot get access to the refugee camps. About 300,000 civilians are injured, maimed and starving, and their Government are not allowing in international aid to help them. I appeal to my right hon. and learned Friend in terms of the issues on which she has concentrated in her political life. It is reported today that 25 per cent. of young mothers and those expecting children are seriously malnourished. Does she agree that we desperately need a debate in the House on that matter?

Harriet Harman: I know that many of my hon. Friend's constituents are of Tamil origin. The House remains deeply concerned about this issue, which has been raised in the House on many occasions, including on 29 and 30 April and in May. We remain deeply concerned about current events, and our primary concern is the immediate humanitarian crisis. As she will know, on Sunday the Prime Minister announced an additional £5 million in humanitarian funding, which the Department for International Development will allocate to assist the civilians displaced in the continued fighting.

Alan Reid: On Tuesday, Mr. Speaker, you granted yet another debate in Westminster Hall on Equitable Life. That debate, like previous debates, was full of Back Benchers from all parts of the House who supported the parliamentary ombudsman's proposals; the only person to defend the Government was the Minister who spoke at the end. In debating how to strengthen our democracy, can we consider a proposal that will allow items to get on to the agenda and provide for votes on issues that are of widespread concern and have support from Back Benchers across the House?

Harriet Harman: Of course, there are already Opposition day debates, but yes, I am sure that that suggestion will be part of the wider debate.

David Anderson: Yesterday a petition signed by 22,500 people was taken to No. 10 Downing street asking the Department of Health and the Government to set up a national centre for asbestos-related diseases. May we have a debate in this House about how we can improve the care given to people suffering from asbestos-related diseases, particularly those who have been criminally and negligently exposed to asbestos at work?

Harriet Harman: Perhaps that should be the subject of a Westminster Hall debate. It is an important issue not only for the Department of Health but for ministerial colleagues with health and safety responsibilities at the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. I will ask them to write to my hon. Friend.

Andrew MacKay: As the situation in Zimbabwe is still grave despite the power-sharing Government, and as there will be some very tricky, delicate decisions to be made on when is the appropriate time to increase aid, does the Leader of the House think that it would be a good idea for the Secretary of State for International Development to make a statement when we return after the recess?

Harriet Harman: I will ask the Secretary of State to consider that proposition. I will also consider whether it might be a good idea to ask the Minister for Africa, Lord Malloch-Brown, to invite Members of this House to have an opportunity to be briefed by him. That would not be instead of a statement, but it is always useful for him to keep Members updated informally.

Dari Taylor: Will the Leader of the House find Government time for a full and frank discussion on the activities of the banks? Like many Members of this House, I have been briefed by local businesses, and it is clear that banks are changing their lending policies—overnight overdrafts are costing more, and lending is being seriously reduced. I was briefed by a vehicle hire company in my constituency called Reflex and, quite frankly, if such banking activity continues, it will close that company. We need that company and other excellent companies to remain open, vibrant and employing at this time. The House needs to pool all its experience and discuss this issue, and the banks need to be seriously challenged by Government.

Harriet Harman: I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. She will know that the Treasury Committee has gone through these issues in great detail, and that the Prime Minister responded on this very point yesterday in Prime Minister's Question Time.

John Bercow: May I associate myself with calls from both sides of the House for a debate on the relationship between Parliament and the Executive?
	May we please have a debate in Government time on the Floor of this House on special educational needs? Given that it is now almost three years since the then Education and Skills Committee, under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), called for a breaking of the link between the assessment of need and the funding of provision, and, on top of that, that this year, at Government request, Ofsted is to conduct a detailed inquiry into the provision of education of children with SEN, is it not now timely for this House to consider how best to meet the needs of some of the most vulnerable children in our country?

Harriet Harman: I shall take up the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to him for the work that he has done, which is not only important to his constituents but of concern to Members of all parties. I shall look for an opportunity to take those issues forward in the way that he suggests.

Derek Twigg: On Saturday 20 June in London, there will be a march for justice for the Hillsborough victims and their families. The Home Secretary and the Culture Secretary have already said it is important that we get out information relating to the Hillsborough disaster, but of course the matter also affects other Departments. Will my right hon. and learned Friend use her good offices to remind other Departments of the statements made by the Culture Secretary and the Home Secretary about identifying information relating to the Hillsborough disaster and its aftermath and making it available as soon as possible?

Harriet Harman: I will back up the point that my hon. Friend has made and take those issues to the relevant Departments. Perhaps he could let me know via my office which other Departments, in addition to those of the Home Secretary and the Culture Secretary, need to consider what information they can produce.

Bernard Jenkin: There is an extremely controversial planning application in my constituency on the edge of the Dedham Vale area of outstanding natural beauty, which would have a severe impact on that area. Could time be found for us to debate the protection of areas of outstanding natural beauty, and is it possible that we could have a debate on how that particular application can be called in for a public inquiry?

Harriet Harman: There were questions to Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Ministers this morning, and the hon. Gentleman would probably have got a more global answer from them, but there will be Communities and Local Government questions coming up in the week we return from the recess.

Jim Sheridan: May we have a debate on consumer rights? Companies such as ActionCOACH seduce people into parting with their savings or redundancy payments on the pretence that they will get large returns. That invariably does not happen, and many people lose significant amounts of money. Should companies such as ActionCOACH not have to be transparent about their claims of a proven track record of success and a reasonable return for investors?

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend is talking not about red tape or burdens on business but about essential protection for consumers, and I shall bring that matter to the attention of the Minister responsible for consumer affairs.

Graham Stuart: May we have an urgent debate on the process by which wind farm applications are approved? Everyone knows that the Government have failed in their promotion of renewables, but can it be right that they can routinely overturn the decisions of local councillors, parishes and people to oppose certain applications? Can she understand the anger and frustration of my constituents who see their local environment altered and their views ignored?

Harriet Harman: There was a debate yesterday about how the House will handle the process of national policy statements, and there will be Energy and Climate Change questions the week the House returns, when I suggest the hon. Gentleman raise those points.

Brian Iddon: Yesterday, on the day after world hepatitis day, the Government made a written statement on Lord Archer's report about contaminated blood. Although I congratulate the Government on moving forward on this issue, what most angered the community that is interested in the subject yesterday was that the Government are still not prepared to match the modest compensation scheme that is available in the Irish Republic. To give us a chance to question Health Ministers, which we were unable to do yesterday, will my right hon. and learned Friend please give us a debate in Government time on contaminated blood?

Harriet Harman: I think that may be a very appropriate subject for a Westminster Hall debate. I shall raise the matter with the Secretary of State for Health. As my hon. Friend mentioned, there was a written ministerial statement responding to Lord Archer's report. He will know that we have increased the amount of compensation for those who have been unfortunate enough to receive contaminated blood, and we have increased the amount of funding that goes to the important work of the Haemophilia Society. We will further review the situation in respect of those who have contracted hepatitis.

Julian Brazier: On the last day of term, may I appeal for a debate during the forthcoming term on prejudice against Christians in a growing proportion of the public services? On top of a string of incidents involving health service and local authority workers being penalised for offering to pray for people, for saying "God bless" to them and so on, the worst case of all must be that of the foster mother who had fostered a large number of children in care and provided a loving home for them, but who lost her job and with it her house because a 16-year-old girl she was fostering chose to convert to Christianity. May I urge the Leader of the House to consider this a worthy subject for a debate in the House?

Harriet Harman: I shall refer the hon. Gentleman's point to the relevant Minister in the Department for Children, Schools and Families. This is really just a matter of basic good practice and common sense. There is nothing in any law or guidance that requires people to act daft.

Julie Morgan: We have made considerable progress on allowances this week, but we still need a lot more debate about the different roles that Members have to fulfil, including having caring responsibilities for children—both men and women have those responsibilities—and for elderly parents. Can we not use this as an opportunity to consider the role of Members as a whole? Would not a way of strengthening democracy be to ensure that we have a range of people here who are able to bring their experiences to our debates?

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We must have in this House people such as herself, who know what it is to balance the responsibility of going to work and doing an important job with that of bringing up children and caring for elderly relatives. That is the situation for most families in our constituencies, and it is right that that should be reflected in the House. Any changes that we make must not undermine the ability of people with family responsibilities to play their part in the House. That is important, as are the constituency link, not having people doing second jobs and the point that we must not make this exclusively a millionaire's club.

Evan Harris: Does the Leader of the House realise that despite the Prime Minister's commitment to ensure that Parliament properly scrutinises the Executive, she risks going down in history as the Leader of the House under whom more clauses of Government Bills than ever have gone through without proper scrutiny by the House? That has been the case with the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill, the Coroners and Justice Bill and now the Policing and Crime Bill—earlier this week 72 Government amendments to this last were not even reached and debated before being pushed through.
	When several hon. Members raised this matter last week at business questions, the Leader of the House promised that there would be consultations and discussions about the programme motion so that we would not have the ridiculous situation that did indeed come about. We had 43 minutes to debate critical amendments on DNA and 29 minutes on gang violence, yet by all accounts there were no discussions or consultations beyond those with just the Conservative Front Benchers. How can we believe that she intends to do something about this if her Government cannot deliver on commitments that she makes to the House at business questions?

Harriet Harman: I do not think that there were discussions only with those on the Conservative Front Bench. It might well be the case that even when there are discussions and consultations agreement cannot be reached, but that does not mean that those discussions were not had. Before the hon. Gentleman attributes to me my historic role as Leader of the House, I have to say that there is always difficulty in getting the balance right between different aspects of Government business and the House's debates. I shall check out whether he is right in his assertion. I point out that we had two very important, indeed historic, statements from you, Mr. Speaker, on the day of the debates on the Policing and Crime Bill.

Mary Creagh: On 30 May 1929, women under the age of 30 were able to vote in a general election for the first time. May I ask my right hon. and learned Friend and all honourable colleagues who will be involved in the debates on the reform of the House to reflect on the fact that, 80 years after that event, despite making up more than half the population, women still account for only a little over a fifth of the Members of this place?
	In response to the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris), I would say that most ordinary people would think that a sitting that lasts 36 hours and goes through the night, with four hours for sleep, as happened on the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill, constitutes thorough scrutiny.

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of the continued role of women in our democracy—not only in being allowed to vote but in being representatives in the House. That is why the Speaker's Conference and its proposals will be important, as will the Equality Bill, which allows all-women short lists to continue. I ask the official Opposition to reconsider their opposition to that measure.

Philip Hollobone: To encourage recycling, many local authorities are issuing wheelie bins to their residents—sometimes one, two or three per household. However, in north Northamptonshire, there is a growing problem of their being set alight, with catastrophic and, sadly, fatal consequences. May we have a statement from the Prime Minister on how that growing menace can be tackled?

Harriet Harman: It is important that councils work with the local community and the police to tackle antisocial behaviour. I remind the hon. Gentleman that there will be Communities and Local Government questions the week the House returns.

Peter Bone: The Government are acting daft in closing a hospital out-patient facility in my constituency, and more than a quarter of the households in Rushden have written to me about the cut. I want to lead a mass demonstration about it on Parliament square. Will the Leader of the House issue a statement about when I can hold that mass demonstration?

Harriet Harman: If the hon. Gentleman wants to hold a mass demonstration, or even a very small one, around Parliament, he needs to apply to the appropriate authorities. Perhaps he will join us in our support for increased investment in the health service. Far from a cut in investment, there will be a 5.3 per cent. increase this year. That is necessary investment for the future. When he is asked to support the Conservative party in cutting capital and revenue investment in our public services, I hope he will think again and join us.

Robert Wilson: The House should recognise the huge sacrifices that Pakistan is making now and will make in future to tackle extremism. Tens of thousands of lives have been lost. May we have a debate on what more the UK and the international community can do actively to support Pakistan and help it emerge as a stronger nation, including establishing a much improved trade agreement with the EU and rapid disbursement of the £12 million that the Prime Minister promised Pakistan to help with internally displaced people?

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman's points are important and I strongly agree that they affect not only those overseas but communities in this country. We have had the important Intelligence and Security Committee report, and the issue that he raises might be a good idea for a topical debate in the near future.

Gurkhas

Jacqui Smith: With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on new settlement rights for former Gurkhas and their families.
	As the House knows, all Gurkhas who retired after July 1997, when the Brigade was relocated to the UK from Hong Kong, are already eligible to settle here under current immigration rules. Since 2004, more than 6,000 Gurkhas and their families have done so.
	On 29 April, hon. Members of all parties made clear their view that the Government should reconsider plans to increase by 10,000 the number of Gurkhas and family members who could come to the UK to live. As my hon. Friend the Minister for Borders and Immigration set out in his statement to the House that evening, we undertook to respect the will of the House and introduce revised proposals. I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for the work that he has led to deliver that commitment. I am also grateful to the members of the Home Affairs Committee and the Gurkhas' representatives, who have helped us to establish the basis for the proposals.
	Our policy will be put into effect through guidance, which we will publish shortly, having first shared it in advance with the Select Committee and Gurkha representatives to seek their views.
	Our new guidance will reflect the will of the House, while remaining affordable and consistent with our broader immigration policy. All former Gurkhas who retired before 1997 and who have served more than four years will now be eligible to apply for settlement in the UK.
	Gurkha representatives have indicated that it will take time for former Gurkhas and their families to make their applications. I welcome the willingness of the representatives to set up a form of resettlement board to assist the process of their integration into British life.
	On the basis of the figure of 10,000 to 15,000 main applicants that Gurkha representatives have suggested, I expect to be able to welcome them and their families over the course of the next two years. I am making resources available in the UK Border Agency to do that, and I am making it clear that there should be no time limit on those applications. The Select Committee has recommended that former Gurkhas should be entitled to bring with them their spouses and dependent children under the age of 18. I am pleased to accept that recommendation.
	The 1,400 or so outstanding applications for settlement that are now being considered by the UK Border Agency will be processed on the basis of the policy I am announcing today. I have instructed the UK Border Agency to process all those cases, as a matter of urgency, by 11 June, but I expect to complete the work earlier.
	The guidance recognises the unique nature of the service given to the UK by the Brigade of Gurkhas. It is offered to them on an exceptional basis.
	I hope that the House will understand the importance of maintaining the distinction, upheld by the High Court, between Gurkhas who served before and after 1997. That is why I welcome the agreement of all parties to our discussions that there is no direct read-across between settlement and pension rights. As the Chairman of the Select Committee wrote in his letter to the Prime Minister on Tuesday,
	"the question of equalising Gurkha pensions should not and need not be conflated with the debate about settlement".
	On the basis of the measures I have set out today, I am proud now to be able to offer this country's welcome to all who have served in the Brigade of Gurkhas and who wish to apply to settle here. I am sure that all who come here will make the most of the opportunities of living and working in the UK.
	I am delighted that we have now been able to agree—across Government, across the House and with the Gurkhas' representatives—new settlement rights, which all those who have served us so well so highly deserve. I commend the statement to the House.

Chris Grayling: This has been a great victory for a well run campaign, which publicly embarrassed Ministers and reminded us all of the role that the Gurkhas have played in helping to defend this country over the centuries. It is also a timely reminder of what the House can achieve when it stands up to the Executive and expresses its will about what should happen. We do not do that often enough.
	First and foremost, this case was about basic decency. Many people from around the world have come to live in this country in the past decade. There was never a justification for denying that right to a group of people who have long lived in the nation's affections, and who have risked, and often given, their lives for its protection.
	We have always been clear that those who risk their lives for this country should have the right to come and live in our country. It is just a shame that the Government had to be dragged kicking and screaming through the courts, at great cost to the taxpayer, then through the crowds of Gurkhas outside this place, before they finally accepted the inevitable.  [Interruption.] The statement is also a tribute to the determined and effective campaign by Joanna Lumley to persuade Ministers to change their minds.
	Does the Home Secretary now finally accept that it was a massive mistake not to listen when we told her to accept the court ruling and not fight it?  [Interruption.] Can she provide the House with more detail about costs? A few weeks ago, the Prime Minister was putting forward almost doomsday financial forecasts about the cost to the British taxpayer of allowing the Gurkhas to settle here.  [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Please allow the hon. Gentleman to be heard. This is important.

Chris Grayling: A few weeks ago, the Prime Minister presented almost doomsday financial forecasts about the cost to the British taxpayer of allowing the Gurkhas to settle here. Will the Home Secretary now confirm that those figures were wrong? What is her current forecast? What impact will today's announcement have on former members of the armed forces who come from other Commonwealth countries or, indeed, non-Commonwealth countries? What rights does she intend to offer them in future?
	Let me give a clear commitment today to the Gurkhas and all those who have taken part in the campaign: you have won a great victory over this Government, but you have nothing to fear from a change of Government. If there is a Conservative Government after the next election, we will honour the agreement and ensure that the Gurkhas who want to come here are treated as honoured veterans of our armed forces, not as an unwelcome addition to the pressures on our immigration system.

Jacqui Smith: Well, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there has been an effective campaign on the issue. I also agree that it is right for the Government to respect the will of the House, and that is what we are doing in bringing forward today's policy proposals.
	I find it slightly more difficult to agree with the hon. Gentleman on his more party political points, not least because the policy that we are announcing today builds on our record as the first Government to provide settlement rights for the Gurkhas—something that was patently not done under the previous Conservative Government.
	The hon. Gentleman talked about the court ruling. Let me make it clear to him that we did fulfil—and are fulfilling in today's policy—the court ruling from last year, which upheld the distinction between those Gurkhas who were discharged pre-1997 and those discharged post-1997. The policy that we are announcing today is in line with that court ruling, as has been everything we have done since.
	The hon. Gentleman asked me about costs. We have been assisted on that by the work of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, alongside officials from across government and Gurkha representatives, on what they believe the actual numbers likely to want to apply will be. We accept the Committee's suggestion that the costs are more likely to be nearer £300 million to £400 million a year.
	As for the hon. Gentleman's point about Commonwealth soldiers, as happened in the debate he appears to be suggesting a radical change with respect to their entitlement to come to this country, which would have significant costs across government. It is for the hon. Gentleman to say how he would implement that and how those costs would be dealt with. Although the scheme for Gurkhas is exceptional, I am confident that their settlement rights now correlate with those of Commonwealth soldiers. On that basis, I think that we are today bringing forward a fair policy.

Martin Salter: In a month that has been appalling for the House of Commons and made many of us feel almost ashamed to be here, I want to say unequivocally that I am proud to be a Member of the House of Commons today. This has been a rare good day for Parliament. I invite the Home Secretary to pay tribute to the work of the all-party group on Gurkha rights, and in particular the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) and the long-time Gurkha campaigner, the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe). Today is an example of Members of Parliament from across the House working with a brilliant and inspirational campaign out there in the country that touched the very core of the British sense of fair play and doing the right thing by people who are prepared to risk their lives for our country. I thank the Home Secretary and the Government for belatedly seeing the light.

Jacqui Smith: I am certainly willing to pay tribute both to my hon. Friend, who has worked hard to raise the issue of Gurkha settlement both with me and the Government, and in the House, and to the all-party group on Gurkha rights for its work, and in particular the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) and the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe), as he said. The detailed work carried out by those representatives and by the Home Affairs Committee on reaching a common view on the likely numbers involved in settlement—and, therefore, the likely costs—has also been important in enabling us to move to today's policy announcement. I thank my hon. Friend and members of the Committee for facilitating that work.

Christopher Huhne: I am grateful to the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement, which I welcome enormously. The Prime Minister and the Minister have finally listened to the will of the House and the will of the British public, which is devoutly to be wished for. The campaign has run for many years. Six years ago, the Gurkhas attended our conference in Harrogate. We have had two wars since the campaign began. It is only through the perseverance of that campaign and the continued pressing of the Government by hon. Members and those outside this place that the Gurkhas finally have justice.
	Does the Home Secretary not realise that dither and delay on that scale only emphasises the gracelessness of the whole process and of the Government's decision? Given the simplicity of the principle involved—that the people who fight and die for this country should have the right to live in this country—surely she should reflect on whether the Government's moral arteries have been somewhat furred in the Government's failure to grapple with the issue. Why did it take so long to recognise the public backing for that fundamental principle and the important claim that the Gurkhas have on the hearts of the British people?

Jacqui Smith: I am slightly disappointed that the hon. Gentleman continues to conflate the situation of those Gurkhas who have been discharged post-1997, when it was this Government who provided for the settlement of those Gurkhas in 2004. We have been pleased to welcome 6,000 Gurkhas, plus their families, as part of that policy change since then. The principle is different, as the court recognised, for the exceptional scheme that we are now putting in place for those discharged pre-1997. The luxury of opposition is to be able to talk about the simplicity of principle. The responsibility of government is to take decisions that do the right thing in terms of our responsibilities to the country, the taxpayer and our immigration policy. That is what I believe we have done today.

George Howarth: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement for two reasons. First, it recognises the unique debt of honour that this country owes the Gurkhas. Secondly, it recognises the unique status that that confers on them. Well done.

Jacqui Smith: I agree with my right hon. Friend. Throughout the arguments about how we put the policy into operation, I hope and I believe that there has never been any doubt from the Government or any hon. Member about our commitment and gratitude to the Gurkhas for the role that they have played in serving this country. Their unique place has enabled us to bring forward the exceptional scheme that we are announcing today.

Iain Duncan Smith: I say unreservedly that this is a fantastic day for hon. Members in all parts of the Chamber who have campaigned on this issue. I pay tribute to the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee in particular, whose calm presence throughout has been welcomed in all parts of the House. One lesson for the Government may be that they have taken what was a good record on the Gurkhas—a record on which they should have been congratulated—and managed to throw it in the gutter in the course of their prevarication. We have had the invidious sight of the Minister for Borders and Immigration chasing around after Joanna Lumley—well, he can be forgiven for that; it was when he caught up with her that the damage was done; in future, perhaps he should chase after someone only if he has a good chat-up line.
	As for the Government, let me congratulate them on finally doing the right thing. This is a great day for the House. In the midst of all the sleaze inquiries and everything else, this is one moment when MPs here can hold their heads up and say, "This is what we should've been doing every day of the week."

Jacqui Smith: The right hon. Gentleman is being slightly churlish about my ministerial colleagues, who have worked hard to get us to today's position. The Government's record on supporting the Gurkhas stands in contrast to that of the previous Government, as I have outlined. I am proud of what we have done, and I think that we are building on that record today.

Keith Vaz: I thank the Home Secretary for an excellent statement. I pay tribute to her, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Borders and Immigration for what they have done, especially over the past few days. The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) is absolutely right: this is a good day for Parliament, because Opposition parties were also part of the process, in informing the Government of what was happening. The seminar on Tuesday, at which people could sit down privately and work things out, was possible only because the Minister for Borders and Immigration invited us.
	I have one final recommendation. I do not know what the Home Secretary's travel plans are, but may I suggest that she go to Kathmandu, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter)—I do not know whether Joanna Lumley will be there—when those visas are issued to see the joy on the faces of those to whom she has given justice today and thank Joanna Lumley for the wonderful work that she has done?

Jacqui Smith: I certainly believe that, as my right hon. Friend has said, the work facilitated by the Home Affairs Committee on Tuesday, with the input of officials across Government, Gurkha representatives and members of the Committee, has been very important in providing us with the basis for the proposals, on which it has been possible to move forward today, confident that we can fulfil our duty to the Gurkhas in line with our responsibility to taxpayers and our broader immigration policy. I thank him for his leadership in bringing that forward.
	I am always slightly wary of accepting invitations to travel anywhere with my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West, great though he has been in this campaign.

Martin Salter: Why?

Jacqui Smith: I am getting myself into trouble, so I shall leave it there.

Paul Keetch: This is, indeed, a very good day for the House and for the Brigade of Gurkhas. I recall working with the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green on this issue five or six years ago, when I spoke for my party on defence and he had the same responsibilities for the Conservative party. The Home Secretary will realise that Gurkhas have continued to fight and to die for this country during that period. Will she consider whether the dependants and families of those who served and were killed or died from old age, including a Victoria cross recipient just, I think, two weeks ago, should also be entitled to this welcome change? This is a very good day, not least because it is my birthday; it is good day for the Gurkhas, and the Home Secretary could make it even better by reconsidering those cases.

Jacqui Smith: Happy birthday to the hon. Gentleman; I am always keen to please. He makes an important point about the dependants and widows of Gurkhas. I hope that he will look carefully at the guidance that we are proposing, which makes it clear that the ability to settle should be open, within the policy, to those who were widowed when their Gurkha husbands were killed in active service. It also includes the discretion to take into consideration exceptional circumstances in respect of other widows and dependants.

Mike Gapes: The Home Secretary has made a very welcome statement, but she has also said explicitly that this case is unique and exceptional. May I press her on the legal certainties of that uniqueness and exceptionality, given that many people in my constituency and elsewhere have relatives in other parts of the Commonwealth who may feel that they are not being treated equally?

Jacqui Smith: Certainly, since 1980, when the rules changed, people from the Commonwealth who served with the British Army have been entitled to settlement in a way that those who served with the Gurkhas were not entitled at that time. Today, we are effectively giving the pre-1997 Gurkhas an entitlement that they did not have, which is roughly equivalent to one that Commonwealth soldiers have had, after four years' active service, to apply for settlement in the UK within two years. We believe that there is legal justification for the exceptional basis of the scheme that we are introducing, and that view was shared by the Home Affairs Committee in its seminar on Tuesday.

Robert Key: I warmly applaud the Government's decision, which is good news indeed. Most of my constituents will be very happy about it, except for the members of the British National party who have put out a leaflet saying that all Gurkhas should go home, which is utterly disgraceful.
	Will the Home Secretary clarify one point from her statement? She said that this policy applies to all former Gurkhas who retired before 1997. May I assume that she is referring to post-1947 Gurkhas—in other words, those who served with the British Army and not the Indian army?

Jacqui Smith: Yes, I confirm that we are talking about Gurkhas from post-1948, when the Brigade of Gurkhas became part of the British Army, rather than pre-1948 when it was, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, part of the Indian army.

Parmjit Dhanda: I very much welcome today's statement; the Government have without doubt made the right decision. However, is my right hon. Friend concerned, as I am, about all the other regiments, not least my grandfather's regiment, the Bengal Engineers, and those who fought in Malaysia, Singapore and Kenya, which never had a Joanna Lumley campaigning for them? The Government have made the right decision today, but, inevitably, there will be inconsistencies for others who have also given blood for king, queen and country over the years.

Jacqui Smith: I believe it is right that we have had the policy, which I have just outlined, for Commonwealth soldiers who served with the British army. For a long time that has meant that those who served for four years and applied within two years of the end of their service were able to get settlement in the UK, but that was not the situation for pre-1997 Gurkhas.

Roger Williams: It is indeed a good day for the House and for Gurkhas. The 120 Gurkhas who serve in the Mandalay company based at Derring Lines in Brecon will also be very pleased about this announcement, although their position was already safeguarded. Will the Secretary of State take on board the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford (Mr. Keetch) about extending the policy to the dependants of Gurkhas who have died but who would have qualified if they were still alive?

Jacqui Smith: I hope that I answered that when I responded to the hon. Member for Hereford's question, when I made it clear that the policy applies to widows whose husbands were killed in active service.

Russell Brown: As others have said, this policy will be welcomed right across the country and by those who served with Gurkha regiments. Have there been any discussions with the authorities in Nepal in recent weeks about the impact on the future of that nation of losing so many good people who might have been its lifeblood? I am sure that this policy will have some economic impact on that nation.

Jacqui Smith: I know that the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), gave the Government of Nepal the opportunity to make any case that they wanted to make in Tuesday's discussion. They have not expressed concern about the change of policy, but it will remain this Government's position to provide development aid where appropriate, including to Nepal. That is an important part of our international responsibilities. Also, there will continue to be a growing element of remittances back to Nepal, which may well benefit that country.

Robert Wilson: May I join others in warmly welcoming the Home Secretary's statement, and pay tribute to everyone inside and outside the House who has been involved in the campaign? Will she assure the House that this announcement will not in any way affect the future of Gurkha regiments in the British Army?

Jacqui Smith: The Gurkhas play a very important part in the British Army and I am confident that they will continue to play that important role.

Dari Taylor: This is indeed an excellent statement, but I remind my right hon. Friend that an enormous amount of distress was caused by the seeming ambivalence of the Government to a fighting force, the Gurkhas, which has given more, on more occasions, to the British armed forces than many whom we call friends. The statement is welcome, but will she reassure the House that the process that the Gurkhas and their families will enter into will not only be speedy, but ensure that they are treated with respect and dignity?

Jacqui Smith: I assure my hon. Friend that there has never been any such ambivalence from this Government or from the people of this country about the contribution that the Gurkhas have made to supporting this country's interests. The Government have a responsibility to find the right way to do the right thing, and that is what we have worked to achieve, alongside Gurkha representatives and across the Government. That is what I believe we have achieved today, and yes, I can give her a commitment that we have in place the resources to process the number of applications that Gurkha representatives believe will come forward. With the assistance that I hope the Gurkha representatives will provide—through the resettlement board that they have proposed, for example—I believe that those people will be able to arrive here, become integrated and play a full part in the life of this country. I am sure that that will be the case.

Lembit �pik: Of all the conflicts the Gurkhas had to fight, it is perhaps ironic that their longest battle was their fight to live in the country that they were willing to die for. Nevertheless, will the Home Secretary accept the gratitude of the many constituents of Montgomeryshire who have fully supported Joanna Lumley, the campaigners and the Gurkhas' right to achieve that goal? The Home Secretary has listened, and she has acted. In so doing, she has shown her Department and Parliament at their best.

Jacqui Smith: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. I, too, give credit to Joanna Lumley. I know that the Minister for Borders and Immigration was able to meet her again yesterday to talk through our proposals. She has played a very important role, and I am pleased that Ministers across the Government have been willing to listen to her and to other campaigners.

Anne Snelgrove: As secretary of the all-party group on Gurkhas, may I, on behalf of the 1,000 Gurkhas living in Swindon, thank the cross-departmental team that came up with this solution? Tomorrow, by sheer chance, I have a meeting with some of those Gurkhas. They will be asking me when the practical information will be published so that they and the Gurkhas who are not in this country can get on with their visa applications. Will my right hon. Friend give me an assurance that that information will be published quickly?

Jacqui Smith: This is most significant for those Gurkhas who are in Nepal. They will form the vast majority of those who will benefit from the announcement. The Ministry of Defence will ensure, through its contacts and its knowledge of where those Gurkhas are, that that information is disseminated to them as quickly as possible.

Evan Harris: I welcome the Government's change of position over the past few weeksand, indeed, that of the Conservative party over a rather longer time. What lessons do the Home Secretary and her Department feel they have learned from what has happened in recent weeks? Would she be willing to apply any lessons that she can think of to another situation in which the spirit of a court judgment needs to be complied with? A similar situation has arisen twice in respect of the highly skilled migrant programme, which is closely analogous with the Gurkhas' situation in terms of compliance with the spirit of that for which the court has asked.

Jacqui Smith: I have learned the lesson that, even when we comply with court rulings, that does not always satisfy campaigns. I have learned that we therefore need to be able to work across Government to ensure that we do the right thing. I think I have probably also learned the lesson that it is easier for those in opposition than it is for those in government to deliver change.

Derek Twigg: I was delighted to have been the Minister to announce the new terms and conditions for the Gurkhas, particularly the pensions, which are now the same as for the rest of the British Army. However, although a Gurkha's pension provides a reasonably good income in Nepal, that would not be the case for a Gurkha living in this country. Obviously, many of the Gurkhas and their families who come to this country will work, but some will be unable to do so or will have reached retirement age. Will my right hon. Friend tell me whether those who are not working will be able to get the same benefits as the rest of the UK population in order to ensure that they have a decent income?

Jacqui Smith: Yes, I can give my hon. Friend the commitment that those Gurkhas who are coming to this country will be coming here to settle and they will therefore have the same entitlement to benefits as anybody in this country, including an entitlement to pension credit, in order to ensure that they have a reasonable level of income if they have retired. He is right to say that, notwithstanding the significant 50 per cent. increase in the Gurkha pension scheme over the past few years for those who were discharged from the Gurkhas pre-1997, there might still be some who will need to claim benefits when they arrive in this country, and that will be part of their entitlement.

Angus MacNeil: On behalf of the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru, I welcome the surrender of the Government in the face of the Gurkha-Lumley onslaught, as do many others inside and outside the House. The Government have eventually done the right thing, and they must be congratulated on it, but I wonder whether the Home Secretary regrets not doing this earlier.

Jacqui Smith: No, I am proud of the Government's record of supporting the Gurkhas and providing settlement post-2004. Working across Government, across the House and with Gurkha representatives, we have done the right thing today, and that is the basis on which I have made this announcement.

Andy Reed: May I also welcome the statement? I do not take it lightly when I rebel against the Government line and, speaking as one of the 27 rebels, I want to thank the ministerial team for doing all that they could to keep their promise to come back to the House.
	I want to raise a practical point. If we are talking about 10,000 to 15,000 Gurkhas rightly being able to settle in this country, will my right hon. Friend ensure that other services are put in place, as well as arranging visas and getting people over here? Will she ensure that housing and all the other local authority services that those people will require will be in place? We do not need to spend time in our surgeries over the next three or four years picking up casework because those services have not been put in place. I am sure that she will be working on those details as much as she has done on the visa application scheme, and if she does, this will be a proud day for the Government. I congratulate her on doing this.

Jacqui Smith: The issue of integration into the community was discussed by the Home Affairs Committee in the seminar on Tuesday. It is obviously an issue that the Government, and MPs in their constituencies, take seriously. That is why I welcome the commitment of the Gurkha representatives, and the proposal that they made on Tuesday to lead work with the resettlement board. That work could look at integration, including support and advice for Gurkhas coming to the UK and support for learning English. That will make an important contribution, alongside the commitment that the Government are making on expenditure, whether on benefits, health or education, to provide the Gurkhas with their entitlement, once they have received settlement in this country.

Gordon Marsden: My right hon. Friend will be aware that, as officers of the all-party group on veterans and members of the all-party group on Gurkhas, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) and I have consistently supported the Gurkha campaign, including in the vote in the House. An enormous number of people in Blackpool have also supported the campaign, not least because of the historic ties that the town has with the Gurkhas, through the Burma Star Association and the British Legion, for example. My right hon. Friend has brought great credit to the Government this afternoon by the clear and simple way in which she has spelled out the new policies. Does she agree that we have a right to be proud of the commitment made by this Government, who were also the first Government to rectify the issue of compensation for far east prisoners of war?

Jacqui Smith: I hope and believe that that is what my ministerial colleagues and I have achieved today. We have been able to do this because of the commitment of Ministers across the Government, Members across the House and Gurkha representatives to engage in a practical way to enable us to overcome some of the difficult issues that had prevented us from making this decision more quickly. I am grateful to all those people, including my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden) and his Blackpool colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood, for supporting us and helping us with the information that has enabled us to do this today.

Phyllis Starkey: In my right hon. Friend's statement, she said that she was making resources available within the UK Border Agency to process the applications. Will she assure me that that will be done by bringing in new resources, and not by relocating resources within the UKBA, which would have the undesirable consequence of delaying still further the cases of many of my constituents who are waiting for their applications to be regularised so that they can settle down to a decent life in this country?

Jacqui Smith: I can give my hon. Friend a commitment that we are already speeding up the basis on which we process applications. We are working hard to get through those legacy cases, some of which might be those to which my hon. Friend has referred. The applications for settlement willrightly, and in line with othersbe accompanied by a fee, which will help us to ensure that we have the resources in place to deal with them. It is because I have confidence in the ability of the UK Border Agency to process these applications and others quickly and effectively that I am able to make the commitment that I have made today.

Nia Griffith: I thank both the Home Secretary and the Minister for Borders and Immigration for being so prompt in responding to my request to re-examine the 20-year service requirement; reassurance was given only four weeks ago, and we have today heard the announcement that it is going down to four years. Will my right hon. Friend talk to the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills to ensure that young Gurkhas living in families here who are doing well at school will not be subject to overseas fees when they go on to university?

Jacqui Smith: Of course, if people have settlement in this country, they are entitled to all the things that come with it. If there are issues that relate not so much to people as Gurkhas but to people as overseas students with respect to universities, I am sure that my right hon. Friend will bear them in mind in line with overall policy on access to higher education.

Andrew Dismore: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement as it has been welcomed throughout the House. I am sure that it will also be welcomed by the Nepalese former Gurkha community in my constituency, particularly in Burnt Oak. May I press the Home Secretary further on the pension? She is right to say that it is a separate issue, but it is also fair to say that people will not be able to live in the UK on a Nepalese Gurkha pension. While it is all well and good to say that people can live on benefits, that is not the same as living on a pension as of right. I caution my right hon. Friend that this issue is not going to go away; some of us will continue to campaign on it.

Jacqui Smith: That was certainly not the view of the Home Affairs Committee, which felt that it was possible to separate out the issue of settlement from that of pensions. We have very much lived up to our responsibility as a Government first to those Gurkhas discharged after 1997, who have been granted entitlement to move on to the wider armed forces pension scheme and, secondly, to those discharged pre-1997, who have receivedthanks to this Government's investmenta much enhanced entitlement under the Gurkha pension scheme. It was the distinction between pre and post-1997 that was upheld in the court ruling, and we believe that the same distinction is being upheld in the policy that we are announcing.

Bob Russell: I congratulate this Government, who have done more than any other Government in history for the Gurkhas. I wish that the pre-1997 Gurkhas had been given their rights earlier, but today is a day for rejoicing. I congratulate the Government once again on listening, and thank them very much.

Jacqui Smith: I thank the hon. Gentleman, who I know has campaigned hard on this issue. As I said, I believe that this is a credit to the House. As a Government we have listened to the will of the House and delivered the right result today.

Whitsun Adjournment

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. (Ian Lucas.)

John Horam: May I take the opportunity presented by this traditional recess Adjournment to say a few words about an important subject for south-east Londonthe reconfiguration of the hospital and health care arrangements in that part of the world. Speaking as the MP for Orpington, I am especially concerned about the impact on my constituency, as well as on the constituency of Bromley. As the Minister will be aware, the Secretary of State for Health has made some momentous decisions in recent weeks and days, which will have a major impact on the provision of health care services in the area.
	What were those decisions? First, the Secretary of State accepted the findings of the review by the independent reconfiguration panel of the proposals for changes in the location and delivery of health care services under the A picture of health programme. The major changes will apply to the area's three big hospitals: the Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust, the Queen Elizabeth hospital, Greenwich, and Queen Mary's hospital, Sidcup.
	Secondly, as well as looking at the provision of health services, the review looked at the whole business of the trusts and their arrangements. Of the three already quite sizeable trusts, one new trust has been created: the South London Healthcare NHS Trust. That came into being on 1 April, with a new chairman, a new chief executive and further appointments to follow. I say in passing that, for me, that represents the end of a long campaign to get committed management into the health service in south-east London. We previously had managers based there for no longer than six months at a time. With that sort of episodic approach to managementto put it politelynone of the big issues was ever going to be properly tackled. Now we have a management who are committed to the futurefor a long time, I hopeand should be able to see through some of the necessary changes.
	The third aspect, which I would like the Minister to draw to the attention of the Secretary of State for Health or other Health Ministers, has not yet happened, but will begin to happen over the next six months. I refer to the financial restructuring of the new trust, which must accompany its creation and the reconfiguration of services in the area. That is mainly a matter for the London NHS, but none the less, since the money is huge, I am sure that Ministers will play a roleand I certainly hope they do.
	The financial situation that the new trust has inherited is indeed dire. The total deficit is likely to exceed 200 million in the not too distant future. That is a huge deficit for any NHS hospital trust to have. In addition, the trust continues to have an operating deficit year by year. It amounts to a financial position that I would suggest is almost unprecedented in the history of NHS trusts. How it came about is something that I have sought to explain in previous speeches. I spoke in a Westminster Hall debate on 28 October 2008from  Hansard column 210so I shall not go over it again; it is now history. The truth is that nobodynot the Government, not NHS London, not the PCT, not the hospitalsemerges with any credit from the circumstances.
	The Government have a financial obligation to provide a proper financial basis for the new trust in order to get it off to a good start. My understanding is that the management are now working on a financial plan and that it should be delivered over the summer for final consideration in the autumn. I hope that the Government will monitor the position carefully and keep it to plan. The management will obviously have to accept tough targets; they cannot simply be given the money without making serious attempts to meet considered targets. It is to those targets that I now wish briefly to turn.
	The Government have a sort of bird's eye view of the local circumstances, but I want to present, if I may say so, a worm's eye view. It goes from the bottom up, which is equally important to the top-down view that will influence the Government: both are necessary in order to produce a balanced viewpoint. With the aid of the worm's eye local perspectivethat of local users and local patientsI would like to make three or four points.
	First, let me deal with staffing. With the financial mess that we have seen, the staff of these hospitals have gone through a very difficult period. It is to their great credit that they have turned in such an excellent performance, particularly when some have simply not known what is going to happen to their local hospital or even their job. I pay tribute to them for what they have put up with during this period; that needs to be said. The difficulty for an outer-London hospital is that its consultants, doctors and nurses do not get inner-London weighting, so the hospitals are always at a disadvantage in competing with inner-London hospitals for staff. Understaffing has been a real concern and, in some areasI do not want to name themit is potentially dangerous. One of the objectives of the merger, and of the creation of this huge trust, is to provide a proper career structure with more pay bands to overcome the disadvantage of having no inner-London weighting and to attract good staff. I certainly hope that that happens.
	It is also important that the staff are better consulted than they have been in the past about the proposed reconfiguration of services. The report by the reconfiguration panel says that the future of Orpington hospital should
	be clarified urgently and hospital staff be fully involved in all further considerations.
	That is important, because the hospital is well loved in the area. It is part of the Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust, along with the Princess Royal University hospital. The staff have not known what will happen, and they must now be given some indication of future planning. That has not happened in the past, but it should happen in the future.
	Physical access to hospitals is never given sufficient attention by hospital planners. People need to get to hospitals without wasting time or paying too much. When I recently visited my local hospital, the Princess Royal University hospital in Farnborough, it took me half an hour to find somewhere to park my car and in the end, I had to park illegallyI hope that that admission will not be held against meto get to the hospital on time. If that happens to me, it must also happen to many of my constituents, and something must be done. I have no answer to that problem, but it is a problem. It is said that people can use public transport, but in the real world, people use their cars to get to hospital, especially when public transport is not very good. It has improved a bit in the area, but it could be better.

Andrew Turner: Even when people use buses, they have to change frequently to get to hospital, and that is equally unsatisfactory.

John Horam: It is, and the hospital in question is a long way from the areas of greatest need in my constituency. People from that area need to take three different buses to get to the hospital, and that is unacceptable for people on limited means and who are not very well.
	The problem will be worsened by the expected reconfiguration, because the accident and emergency department at Queen Mary's hospital in Sidcup is likely to close, and that is the one that serves the Cray Valley, the area with the least good health in my constituency. I recently went to a meeting about health problems in the Cray Valley area, convened by Mr. Harold Barker, a well respected local resident, and there was clear concern expressed about this issue. I ask the Minister to ensure that when the reconfiguration occurs, proper consideration is given to the need for people in that area to have good access to other accident and emergency departments. If their nearest accident and emergency centre is closed down, they will have to travel much further. There are other aspects to health issues in the Cray Valley, and I noted that at the meeting the primary care trust gave an undertaking that it will report back to the neighbourhood group by July on what is happening. The area certainly needs extra health care provision.
	The third issue is cleanliness, and the situation is patchy. I get differing reportssome good, some very worryingabout attitudes to cleanliness in hospitals, some of which are reported to be casual, uninformed and poor. The hospital group does not have an especially good record on MRSA or clostridium difficile, and that is part of the problem.
	Fourthly, the medical side of the matterwhether people will be properly treatedis a fundamental issue, but I do not want to comment on that in this debate. We will have to look at that after the reconfiguration and after the trust has done what it thinks necessary to improve the situation.
	Finally, I want to say something about consultation with the local health community, by which I mean the relevant scrutiny committee of Bromley council, the Local Involvement NetworkLINkwhich is the public side of the trust's board meetings, and the dissemination of information to the public either directly or through the local press. The new huge trust has three LINks to deal with, so it is becoming a more complicated issue. Public involvement went badly wrong under the previous management of the trust. In particular, the consultation on the future of Orpington hospital was badly handled, as was the issue of the future of Global house. It is an administrative building owned by the PCT, but the Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust paid a fee for its administration staff to use it. The poor handling of those issues created suspicions among those interested in health matters locally, but that could have been avoided by more openness.
	In addition to the poor handling by old management, the new management have not got off to a good start in relation to statutory consultation. The LINk is a statutory body, and individuals who represent it have a right to be heard in the public section of board meetings. That did not appear to be properly understood at the recent board meeting of the trust. The LINk representatives were not treated with the respect that their position deserves. Not only that, but the board has failed to produce papers and agendas with sufficient time for them to be absorbed and understood by attendees. As we all know, the NHS is full of jargon and some of the papers are incomprehensible unless one has time to work them out. It is incumbent on management to give those who want to understand the time to work out what the reports say. In that respect, I draw the attention of the management to the NHS code of practice on openness and the code of conduct for NHS boards. I hope that the board will read, learn and inwardly digestas we used to say at primary schoolthose documents, because I will hold it to account on its adherence to them. I hope that the Government will do the same.
	Leaving those issues aside, the management of the huge new trust are also new. They may have stumbled in their consultations to begin with, but they should be given a chance. It is important not to hark back to the past, but to look to the future and how we can improve patient care in Bromley and adjoining boroughs. It is also important to look at the results of health care, rather than the process. We can spend too much time worrying about whether processes have been adhered to: it is important that people are treated properly and get well soon.
	Last week I attended a seminar on NHS management. There is concern that, although many people want to become managers in the NHS, they are often put off by the stressful situation inherent in those jobs. NHS managers today have a plethora of targets compared with similar private sector jobs. They are subject to scrutiny by this House and other politicians. There is also often huge opposition to changeeven necessary changeand that is not always responsibly conducted.
	The South London Healthcare NHS Trust has an opportunity to plot a new way forward for the benefit of my constituents. I hope that the Secretary of State will monitor the situation closely: it is imperative that he does so.

Graham Allen: MPs have deluded themselves that they have power. We swallowed the mythology of parliamentary sovereignty. Real power actually exists in Government, who control Parliament lock, stock and barrel, even down to setting the minutiae of Parliament's daily agenda. It is Government who are as responsible for Parliament's current position just as much as weak MPs. Instead of Parliament being a strong, independent partner, Government's steady attrition has made us a rubber stamp for decisions made in Whitehall. Our role, in the words of Gladstone, is
	not to run the country but to hold to account those who do.
	That birthright has been sold for a little status and some chickenfeed allowances, and even they have been stripped away from us in recent days.
	So where do we go from here? Amazingly, we have been given one last chance to rescue our self-respect as Members of Parliament. MPs can elect a new person to speak for us and for our Parliament. Rather than having the preferred candidate of the Government, or alternative Government, as has happened in the past, we can for the first time make our own choice in a secret ballot about who we want to be the Speaker of this House. That is the most important decision that any of us will make in our political careers and about the future of Parliament. There will be no one else to blame, no excuses and no anxiety about being seen voting by the Whips in the wrong Lobby. It is a secret ballot, a private decision of conscience for all Members of this House, a vital choice and a tremendous responsibility.
	It will also set a powerful precedent. The secret ballot is the enemy of undemocratic institutions abroad and at home. In this case, under threat is the tyranny of a leaden-footed and visionless system of government. The secret ballot is the longest established and most highly potent instrument that can be the salvation in the face of that tyranny and can lead us towards building a new Parliament under a new Speaker.
	The secret ballot should be used not only in this forthcoming election for the Speaker, but should be extended by this House for use in Parliament to liberate two pivotal areas. First, it can be the means by which Parliament can take back control of its own affairs and be wholly responsible for its own actions, independent of Government, rather than being the victim of someone else's decisions. MPs can take back control of our own agenda from Government by electing, in a secret ballot, our own Business Committee, so that Members of Parliament rather than the Government can agree the agenda. Of course, any sensible group of Members would seek to find time for appropriate Government business, but the responsibility would be ours. The selection of people on that Committee would be the responsibility of Members in all parties, and we would be taking back control of our destiny.
	Secondly, we can take back responsibility for holding Government to account if we elect, by secret ballots, all our Departmental Select Committees. MPs can choose to elect to those Committees colleagues who command the respect of their fellow MPs, rather than those who are responsible to the very Government whom we are meant to be holding to account. Those MPssome new, and many who would be returned to the Committees of which they are already memberswould do so with added legitimacy and independence, completely free from the taint of Government or party patronage. The secret ballot could deliver that incredible prize to this House, returning the ability to hold to account the Government of the day and those who wish to be the Governments of future days.

Lynne Featherstone: I agree wholeheartedly with everything that the hon. Gentleman is saying. Is he aware that there are movesfrom the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson), I believeto try to get the secret ballot abolished? That would be an absolute tragedy, given that we have had this opportunity.

Graham Allen: If that is indeed the case, it is extremely misguided. Such opportunities for MPs do not even come once a Parliament; they come once a generation. We have the opportunity to remake the democracy in our country, and members of all parties should seize that opportunity.
	Only a new Speaker can establish democratic decision making for MPs, and only then if it has been a clear part of the platform on which they have stood to seek our vote. The all-party group, Parliament First, is asking each of the candidates not only where they stand on this issue, but to demonstrate strong leadership over the next few weeks. That would lead to a debate about the need to strengthen the principle, which has now been broached, of getting a secret ballot into this place, because of all the benefits that would flow from that if it were extended in the two ways that I have suggested.
	The leaders of the two main parties, and those of the minority parties, also have a chance by endorsing the secret ballot to be seen to be on the side of creating a genuinely independent Parliament. Instead of twisting in the wind and reacting to the latest crisis, they can be part of a new settlement for our Parliament and for our democracy. Have they the courage to do that? I certainly hope so.
	Once the election of the Speaker is over, the pressure from Government to return to business as usualthe micro-management of Parliamentwill be immense. So, hopefully with the consent of the party leadersbut without them if necessarythis issue must be moved forward by those who are centre-stage, through the debate and campaigning surrounding the election of a new Speaker. After the election, it must be moved forward without delay. The longer there is a delay, the less likely that it is that the precedent can be extended to democratise our politics in this House and in our country.
	Government control of Members of Parliament has led this House and its Members to our lowest ebb in living memory. Now, Members have only one chanceonly oneto put it right. We have one chance to cast aside our chains. We should do so by supporting a Speaker who will extend the secret ballot and give Parliament and parliamentarians a role in life and a fresh start.

David Heath: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen). He expresses not only the desperation felt by so many right hon. and hon. Members at the state of our Parliament and our parliamentary democracy but our dismay at the extent to which this House has been trodden through the mud in recent weeks. People like me, who consider that it is an enormous privilege and honour to be a Member of Parliament and to be able to stand in this place and say what we want to say on behalf of our constituents, feel that our positionour vocation, if one wishes to call it that, and I think that it is a vocationhas been sullied by the actions of a few and by the almost irreparable damage to our reputation. That cannot be right.
	We should be proud to be in this place and to do the job that we do. We are not entitled to the respect of our fellow citizens, but we need to be able to earn it. As I said earlier today, we can do that by dealing with the sordid issue of our expenses and the way that some Membersalthough not allhave chosen to interpret the rules. However, the issue goes much wider, because we also have to look at the whole system of democratic accountability.
	From what she said earlier, I think that the Leader of the House has got it, as I think has the shadow Leader of the House. There is a realisation among those who think about these matters that we cannot go on like this; equally, however, I know perfectly well that there is a ballast of Members who, sadly, do not share that interest. They will obstruct proper reforms of the sort set out by the hon. Member for Nottingham, North, and they will be bullied and coerced by the Whips.
	The Whips have no business in this area of our work. They can butt out of our election of a Speakerit is not their issue. They need to understand that, because too often the influence of the Whips of all parties has got in the way of realistic reform. When Robin Cook was proposing his far-reaching reforms, he was defeated by a coalition of Whips. The then Leader of the House defeated by other elements in the Governmentthat cannot be the right way to deal with the problems that face us.

Graham Allen: We need to be a little careful about blaming the Whips. On the Government side, they are the paid servants of the party leadership. The Whips of the Opposition parties are also very close to their party leaderships. They are surrogates for the decisions of the Government and the alternative Governments, and special views are not conjured up in the respective Whips' offices. The Government Whips' Office is the largest department of state, and we should not disown what goes on by saying, This is just the Whips. We should be clear that they express the Government's view, and that needs to be smoked out as such.

David Heath: I accept that entirely. I am simply identifying the agents of reactionthe ones we sometimes see glaring at Members at the entrance to the Aye or No Lobby when they feel that those Members are not doing what they have been told to do.
	We need to address exactly the issues that the hon. Member for Nottingham, North has set out. For instance, he mentioned a business committee: how long have we been saying that it is for this House to decide the business, and not the Executive? The Executive put Bills before the House for approval, and it is our job to scrutinise them. It is not the House's job to help and assist the Government to whisk a Bill through the House before it can be properly scrutinised. Proper scrutiny can take place only when the responsibility for setting the business of the House has been taken from the Executive. That is not their business: it is ours, and we should take back responsibility for it.
	There are many things that we can do to make the House better able to hold the Government of the day to account, but I would go further and say that the problem is not confined to Parliament. There is a real crisis throughout this country's democratic structures. People increasingly feel disaffected and disconnected from the political process, and that is getting more pronounced every year. They feel powerless, and believe that their MPs either do not represent them properly or are incapable of changing decisions taken by unseen bureaucrats and agencies. They feel that local councils do not have the powers to make local decisions on their behalf that they believed were invested in them becauseagainsuch decisions are so often matters for an agency or a Government Department, at either regional or national level. As a result, councils find that they are being second guessed when it comes to their administrative responsibilities.
	Very often, things happen that are entirely contrary to the wishes and needs of local communities simply because someone who is unaccountable says so. Nobody appears able to change such decisions.

Bob Russell: Both my hon. Friend and I were leaders of local councils before we came to this place. Does he agree that, after 12 years of a new Labour Government, local communities have less say over what goes on in their area than they did before 1997?

David Heath: I am absolutely sure that that is true. I used to be the leader of a county council, and I can point to things in Somerset that are there because I agreed with council committees that they should be. Increasingly, however, the restrictions placed on local government mean that councils are no longer able to take such decisions. As I say, more and more decisions are being taken at a level that is not accountable to the man or woman in the street, and people have no way of connecting with those who make the decisions.
	For example, my son is taking his driving test this afternoon. Whether he passes or fails remains to be seen, but just to take the test he is having to go to a town that is 30 miles and more than an hour distant from our home. That is because someone who is not accountable to local people or this House has decided to close the test centre nearer to our community in the interests of service efficiency. That is what suits the bureaucrats, and so local people have to make the longer journey that I have described.
	The problem is not confined to the day of the test. Everyone who has taken a driving test will know that driving lessons have to be conducted in the streets where the test is to be held. Over recent weeks, my son has had to have three-or four-hour sessions with his driving instructorat great expense, I might say, with some passionof which two hours is spent getting to and from the town where the test is to be held. That is not what local people want, and it is not serving the local public.
	The same problem arises with tax offices, which are being closed all across the country. The Bristol tax office is well over an hour's travel from where I and my constituents live but we have to go there because the one in Frome, which used to be on the doorstep, is no longer open. What sort of service is that for local people with an inquiry about which they need to consult the tax man? Never mind about the inconvenience of travelling to the centre of a city, what about the environmental consequences? That cannot be in the interests of local people.

John Horam: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Heath: I was just about to refer to the hon. Gentleman. I shall do so first, and then give way to him. Earlier, he gave examples of the unaccountability of so much of the health service to local needs. Some local health services are very good indeed, and they do listen to local people. Others, however, are hopeless and simply could not care less about whether the service that they provide suits the local community. All that concerns them is that they tick the boxes specified by the Government and, again, that cannot be right.

John Horam: The hon. Gentleman is right that there is great lack of consultation in the health service, but the other example that I would give to back up the point that he is making is the Government's remarkable plan to close a large number of jobcentres just when unemployment is rising. It is astonishing, and my own town of Orpington has been badly hit by the closure of the jobcentre there. The Government did not think ahead. The jobcentre in Bromley, which people all have to go to now, does not have enough chairs or enough toiletsenough of anythingto cope with all the extra people who are going there, despite the fact that notice was given two years ago that this might happen.

David Heath: The hon. Gentleman gives another very good example of such increasing faithlessness and increasing lack of awareness of local need.
	I could speak on roads for the rest of the afternoon.

Shailesh Vara: I hope you will not.

David Heath: The hon. Gentleman has heard me speak at length about the roads in my constituency, and I will not go through them all now; but let me mention one, which provides a clear example of lack of understanding. Until a little while ago the A303, which some Members know, was termed the second strategic route to the south-west. It is the alternative to the M4-M5 corridor. Somebody, somewhere, decided that it should no longer be the second strategic route to the south-west, so in the south-west regional spatial strategy it is downgraded to a road of regional significance. It carries an enormous amount of trafficnot least the holidaymakers trying to make their way to the south-west peninsula each yearbut because of that downgrading it will not get the improvements that it needs, which were promised over 12 years ago. It will not get the dualling that was required to make it effective and safe because somebody, somewherenot the local council, not even the Secretary of Statehas decided at a stroke of a pen, that to downgrade the main road to the west country. That is simply unacceptable.
	I have done my best for the road in recent years. I have repeatedly stated the need for these improvements, but my voice is not heard in this place by Ministersby the people who take decisionsbecause there is somebody out there who is unaccountable, who says, Oh no, Minister. I don't think we need to worry about this. This isn't a priority. Well, it is a priority; it is a priority for my constituents, and they expect people to hear what they say.
	I do not want to go any further on this subject. I simply say that we need a massive programme of reformof democratic renewal. We really need a crusade that makes people understand that actually democracy is precious, and that we are in danger of losing our credentials as a democratic nation simply because people no longer have any confidence in the system. It starts in this placegetting this place right, getting it working. Then, it must apply to our wider constitutionmaking that more effective. It must then widen to empower the individualit is a cant phrase, but a necessary phraseso that they know that their voice is heard, that they have a mechanism by which they can articulate their hopes and fears, and that somebody will listen. At the moment they believe nobody is listening, and that is what is wrong with our democratic processes.

Andrew Turner: Before we break up for the recess, I should like to highlight some of the issues in my constituency, the Isle of Wight.
	The island suffered a terrible blow last month. The UK's only wind turbine blade manufacturer, Vestas, made the decision to close its plant on the island. That has led to the loss of 600 skilled jobs. The pull-out could also cost the island potential jobs, as Vestas was planning to expand its operation into a new site at Newport.
	The island has relatively high unemployment, so this is especially bad news during a recession. It is a personal tragedy for the skilled staff who are losing their jobs. It is just as much a tragedy for the island's economy. It is also a blow for the emerging market in renewable energies in the UK. The whole affair rather spoils the Government's energy strategy, which aims to
	provide more support for low-carbon technologies.
	Vestas proposes to move manufacturing of its turbine blades to the United States of America and China, where, of course, it would be carried out at a lower price. The Government have failed to ensure the right conditions for investment in renewable energy. They have also failed to protect the whole economy from the worst effects of the recession.
	Vestas has since said that it may reopen a manufacturing plant in the UK somewhere, sometime in the future. I fear it may be too late for those losing their jobs on the island. I hope that the economy recovers swiftly, and that skilled jobs return to the island. Meanwhile, 600 islanders and their families face a bleak future.
	A subject that has been causing concern to farmers on the island is the disposal of fallen stock. The island does not have facilities to incinerate fallen stock, which is, I understand, the preferred method. Since 2003, the Isle of Wight has not been covered by the national fallen stock scheme. As the name suggests, the scheme facilitates the safe disposal of fallen stock. During that period, with the approval of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs but without derogation, farmers on the Isle of Wight were unofficially allowed to bury fallen stock on their land. That practice, however, was not in compliance with DEFRA regulations, leaving island farmers in a vulnerable position.
	One woman was taken to court for burying fallen stock. She was subsequently found not guilty when it became clear that the unofficial derogation was not legal. That led to a hiatus of around three weeks, when burial was suspended. Since the changes to the rules earlier this year, Ministers agreed to award the island official derogation. That allows farmers to continue the practice of burying fallen stock on their property. However, it is not a long-term solution. DEFRA's own website explains that
	the degradation process to ensure the reduction of BSE/TSE infectivity cannot be guaranteed by burial.
	I am also concerned by the concept of fallen stock being buried near local water sources, for obvious reasons. In addition, there is the likelihood that the unpleasant sight of dead animals being buried may be seen by holidaymakers out in the countryside.
	Ideally, this hazardous waste should be incinerated as soon as possible. DEFRA regulation states that the owner of the carcase is responsible for its disposal. I am reliably informed that the cost to ship one fallen bovine to the mainland for incineration is around 450. Clearly, the cost is prohibitive to the average farmer. There needs to be a long-term, safe and sustainable solution. I am no specialist in the matter, but I know that burial should not continue indefinitely.
	As Members may be aware, I campaigned for the Office of Fair Trading to investigate the three car ferry services to and from the islandthose being Ryde to Portsmouth, Southampton to East Cowes, and Lymington to Yarmouthand passenger ferries. There has not been an investigation of its kind for almost 20 years. The results of that investigation are due any time now. I, and I am sure my south coast colleagues and, of course, residents of the island, will read the findings with great interest.
	Finally, I should like to say something about hospital waiting lists in the Isle of Wight primary care trust and on the mainland. One consequence of waiting excessive periods for the treatment of illness or injury can be an increased risk of defaulting on a mortgage, failing to meet the rent or even unemployment. Such worries are of particular concern during a recession.
	Of course, for sufferers, the most pressing aspect of long hospital waiting lists is the physical and psychological discomfort that the delays exacerbate. In the past few months, I have noticed a steady stream of constituents coming to me with stories of long periods between diagnosis, referral and treatment. One constituent in his 40s is suffering from kidney stones, and has been left in agony, and out of action, for weeks with no date for an operation. Needless to say, that is putting his business at risk and seriously degrading his quality of life. Another, a widow in her late 70s who suffers pain while eating and swallowing, has been left for almost 26 weeksthat is, six monthswithout treatment. The recognised period between referral and treatment on the island should not be more than 18 weeks.
	Another constituent, suffering from serious back problems, was referred to a hospital on the mainland and was made to wait for months for a scan after the first was cancelled. Yet another constituent, again in his 40s, is suffering from a back problem, and has been bounced from one hospital to another on the mainland, with long gaps between referrals. He has had to chase up most of his appointments, and feels like he has been lost in the system. His job, too, is under threat because of the delay in receiving treatment. Those individual cases paint a wider, rather grim picture. We really need to know whether there are significant numbers of cases in which a significant amount of time is wasted. I hope that the position can be improved. In the meantime, I wish you, Madam Deputy Speaker, the Opposition and even the Government a very happy and pleasant week's holiday.

Bob Russell: The Leader of Her Majesty's official Opposition, the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), came to my constituency on 27 April. The roadshow billed as Cameron Direct rolled into Colchester, stayed about an hour and then rolled on, the 28th stop of his national tour over. Admission to hear him was by ticket only, not for reasons of popularity, with a sell-out expected, but to keep out those who were not of the faith. I am glad that he came, and I am particularly grateful to him for publicly endorsing what the Conservatives are doing locally. That will boost the electoral fortunes of my party.
	Colchester is the only part of Essex that does not have a Tory council. I had hoped that the Leader of the Opposition would listen to local people on the biggest local issues in the town, but he did not. I hoped that he would persuade the county Tories that they were wrong, but he did not. The real losers in all that are not the Conservatives, although that would be a welcome by-product, but the people whom I have the honour of representing. Like it or not, national and local politics are part of the same fabric. They are interwoven. National decisions and policies affect local decisions and policies. Of course we must try to separate the two as much as we can, but the realities of life, so far as the Conservative party is concerned, were confirmed by the Cameron Direct visit to Colchester.
	Actually, I quite like the right hon. Gentleman as a person. We are on first-name terms. That dates back to when we served together on the Home Affairs Committee, notably on our inquiry into drugs. His views on the subject were far more liberal than mine, as the official record confirms. It also goes back to when, along with the shadow Chancellor, we met regularly in the mornings, here in the House of Commons, to discuss the issues of the day. Indeed, I recall providing helpful advice and encouragement to the right hon. Member for Witney when he decided to stand for the leadership of the Conservative party.
	One of the great delights of this place is the Members' bathroom, which is best described as a posh version of a typical sports changing room. It has a communal area, but separate baths and showers. It was here that we exchanged banter and political observations. Two of the policies that I suggested to the right hon. Gentleman as part of what he billed as his compassionate Conservative agenda have been adopted by him, although he has never given me the credit. Sadly, since his elevation to party leader, both he and his shadow Chancellor have stopped that early-morning visitation to the Members' bathroom; presumably, they have even grander surroundings to go to.
	It was thus in a spirit of comradeship that I sent the leader of the Conservative party a briefing about the political situation in Colchester. I sensed that perhaps the local Tories would not be frank about how, in May last year, against the national tide of Conservative victories, they managed to lose five seats on Colchester borough council and, with them, control of the councilthe only place in the east of England where such a disaster for the Tories occurred. The huge rejection of the Tories in Colchester was due not to national issues but to local ones; I thought it would be helpful if I explained that to the right hon. Gentleman. He subsequently thanked me. Unfortunately, he ignored my helpful briefing, and endorsed the very policies that last year saw his party humiliated in Colchester. The front-page headline in the following day's  Colchester Gazette read: David supports school closure scheme. That is very helpful to my party, but a huge disappointment to the people of Colchester who are overwhelmingly opposedthe figure is 96 per cent., according to Essex county council's own consultationto the closure of two secondary schools in my town and the reconfiguration of the five that remain, all of which will have to expand dramatically. The whole so-called public consultation was a farce.
	It is not only the people of Colchester whom the Leader of the Opposition let down by backing the plans of his Tory chums on the county council. The leader of that council, Lord Hanningfield, is one of his Front-Bench spokesmen in the House of Lords. Every Conservative borough councillor in Colchester is opposed to what their Conservative colleagues at county hall are proposing. There is a massive split in the Tory party in that part of Essex. Instead of backing the people of Colchester, however, the Leader of the Opposition chose to support the county Tories, based 30 miles away in Chelmsford.
	Colchester is one of the fastest-growing areas in Britain. In terms of population, it is the country's second-largest borough, with some 175,000 residents. There are many unitary councils with a smaller population. If Colchester had a unitary council, the two secondary schoolsAlderman Blaxill and Thomas Lord Audleywould not be shutting. The borough council proposed alternative measures that would have meant retaining both schools. At December's borough council meeting, not a single Tory councillor backed both closures; they proposed a merger with a new academy on a new site, but at least they recognised that there needed to be a secondary school somewhere in the south of the town, where more than 2,000 new houses are being built on the site of the former Colchester garrison. The hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), some of whose constituents go to Alderman Blaxill and Thomas Lord Audley, also supported the concept of a merger and an academy.

Andrew Robathan: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has told my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) that he was going to mention him, has he not?

Bob Russell: I have just praised the hon. Member for North Essex. We are united in opposition to Essex county council's proposals to shut the two schools; we just have a difference of opinion on how we should go forward. There is a world of difference between praising a Member and criticising him.
	The majority on the council were in favour of what became known as option 4the federation of the two schools with the Stanway school, under the executive headship of the inspirational Mr. Jonathan Tippett, who is already in overall charge of the three schools, and who has produced impressive outcomes since he took the helm of all three. A local solution for a local situationsomething, one would have thought, that fitted the Tory agenda of so-called localism, of giving more powers to schools and heads, and of removing the dead hand of education authorities and officials. The reality, as demonstrated by the overbearing arrogance of county hall's leadership, is somewhat different. The county council's own consultation revealed that 96 per cent. of people opposed its proposals, but when the remote county Conservatives, only one of whom lives in my constituency, sought to justify what they were doing, they dismissed that. They said that that was not representative of the silent majority. That is the language of those who lead despotic regimes.
	The Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition knows that those who run Essex in the name of his party do his party an ill service, yet he has chosen to ignore it. As was reported in the  Colchester Gazette, he told the Colchester audience:
	It has to be up to the county council and people in Colchester to decide.
	The people of Colchester have, at every opportunity, opposed the closure of the two schools; notably, its 60 borough councillors oppose it, too. The rhetoric of Cameron Direct is different to the reality of what his party in Essex is doing 30 miles away at county hall.
	Until May last year, the proposal from Essex county council was to close both Thomas Lord Audley and Alderman Blaxill schools, and create an academy for the whole of south Colchester on the TLA site. County officials gave compelling reasons why that should happen, and successive education portfolio holders argued that it was the only way forward. The local community disagreed, and I pursued the matter at parliamentary level. The case against the county proposals was overwhelming.
	On 19 May 2008, as recorded by  Hansard in Children, Schools and Families questions, the Secretary of State said in response to a question that I tabled:
	Essex county council has explained that its preferred approach is to build on the existing partnership with Stanway school and to pursue a trust. We will support the council in its decision, but only as long as there is genuine improvement in all three schools.[ Official Report, 19 May 2008; Vol. 476, c. 3.]
	There has been genuine improvement: Thomas Lord Audley has achieved its best results in 50 years, exceeding the target of 30 per cent. GCSEs at grades A to C, and Alderman Blaxill has come out of special measures. On 20 May 2008, I had a meeting with the Minister for Schools and Learners, his officials and representatives from the Colchester community. The Minister sought confirmation from officials of how the Secretary of State's announcement could be taken forward. We were told that this could be done by the autumn, given good will all round.
	Sadly, that was not to be. Clearly angered by what had happened, Lord Hanningfield, in addition to being a shadow Minister in the other place and leader of Essex county council, took over the education portfolio insofar as it related to Colchester, and has personally driven an agenda to close not one but both schools. His costly vendetta will result in millions of pounds of public money being spent on new building projects, rather than money being invested in the existing buildings in the communities where the children live. Children will be bussed out of their communities, and there will be a reduction in parental choice.
	County officials, who only weeks earlier were arguing one thing with professional passion were told what Lord Hanningfield wanted. To their lasting shame, they have concocted a case, made up as they went along, to seek to justify closing both Thomas Lord Audley and Alderman Blaxill schools. I call on the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families to honour what he told the House on 19 May last year: he spoke in good faith, and what he said was clearly based on what his officials had been told by Essex county council. The Deputy Leader of the House will understand that that would be in accordance with Government policies on sustainable communities, safe routes to schools, and Every Child Matters. It would also be less costly to the public purse, and provide real value for money.
	The proposals to shut two schools in my constituency were not the only reason why the Conservatives did so badly at the ballot box in May last year; another was their general financial incompetence at the town hall. They put 12 million into Icelandic banks. The new administration, led by the Liberal Democrats supported by Labour and Independents, got that down to 4 million before the Icelandic banks crashedthank goodness it was not the 12 million that the Tories had put there. Then there was the matter of the 6 million pay-off to a private housing maintenance firm, which the new administration inherited from the Conservatives.
	In the eyes of the public, howeverand this is where national politics blends with local politicsthe single most important issue of financial shambles which really angered the good people of Colchester was the folly of an unwanted art gallery that has been foisted on the town, even though people overwhelmingly did not want it. The original cost was put at 16 million. The gallery is now two years late, all work has stoppedagainand the cost has soared to 25 million. The visual arts facility, to give it its official name, has been funded primarily by the national taxpayer, with the largest sums coming from Arts Council England, East and the East of England Development Agency. Essex county council is a major player, too, with Lord Hanningfield personally driving the agenda from county hall. Colchester borough council's capital financial contribution is smaller, but at about 3.5 million, it is still a sum that Colchester residents would have preferred to spend on other things, such as upgrading the bus station, which was closed by the previous Tory council to provide a site for the visual arts facility.
	It has been revealed that, although there is sufficient land for the bus station to be repositioned, the previous Conservative borough and county administrations entered into an agreement to prevent that from happening. I have been told, however, that the details cannot be published because of commercial confidentiality. How can it be commercially confidential, if two local councils are involved? The estimated annual revenue subsidy that the new arts venue will require has been put at 600,000 from the public purse, of which 300,000 will come from council tax payers. A major feature of the VAF will be the display of contemporary Latin American art. It is worth observing that Arts Council England is planning to spend more money on contemporary Latin American art than it does on promoting England's traditional folk culture. Surely Arts Council England should put our national heritage before modern art from south America.
	The past two weeks have been the worst I have ever known for MPswe have all been tarred with the same brush. Although it is clearly unfair, that is life, and we have to put up with it, right or wrong. What is not acceptable, however, is the abusive phone calls that Members' staff have received. My office has received only a couple of such phone callsthere have also been three abusive e-mailsbut I am aware that for the staff of some MPs it has been a very nasty ordeal. I therefore wish to place on record my appreciation to all staffnot just the staff in my officeand register my regret that some people have been abusive to them.
	There are, of course, two Houses of Parliament. Yesterday, in the other place, two peers were suspended for serious misconduct. One of them, Lord Truscott, used to be a Labour councillor and organiser in Colchester. The regulations in the Commons have been found wanting, and have been exposed over the past fortnight. However, I suggest that the public want a complete overhaul of both Houses of Parliament, not just the Commons. For the financial year 2007-08, a total of 25,654 in overnight and day subsistence was claimed by Lord Hanningfield, which is more than the highest claim made by any MP. The official records show that Lord Hanningfield attended on 120 days out of the 164 for which the House of Lords sat, although he was present for only 29

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has informed the Member of the other place what he is about to do in going into the details.

Bob Russell: I have not done so, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I am reading from official records.

Madam Deputy Speaker: I do not doubt where the information has been obtained, but I wonder whether, in fact, the hon. Gentleman has advised the Member of the other place that he is going to quote it.

Bob Russell: I have not done so, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was aware only of the fact that we have to inform Members of the Commons. If I am not allowed to read from the official records from the other place, I will obviously abide by your ruling. However, these details are all on the record.

Madam Deputy Speaker: I do understand that the hon. Gentleman is quoting information on the record, but in reflecting on the conduct of a Member of another place, it might be appropriate to inform them.

Bob Russell: I accept your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I will seek an Adjournment debate so that I can put the matter on the record. I will inform the noble Lord of the matters, which are in the public domain and which I have sought to draw to the attention of the House because they are of interest. I accept your ruling, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I shall therefore conclude my speech.

Lynne Featherstone: There are a few matters relating to my constituency that I wish to address. Before I do so, however, as a new Member who joined the House in 2005, I want to say how shocked I am by the way in which Parliament works, and how democracy is often thwarted here, rather than advanced. Perhaps I was simply naive before I came here and knew very little of politics so did not see the reality, but I hoped that my belief that the House was the seat of people who come here to stand up for things and fight for truth and justice was right. Like everyone else, I have been horrified by the revelations over the past few weeks, but if there is any silver lining, it is that it sometimes takes something of seismic proportions to shake the corridors of history in Parliament and to change things for the better. I hope that all hon. Membersand I was listening to the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen), who made a good contributionwill consider how the House must handle the future so that we can regain the trust and confidence of our constituents. I was very proud and privileged to become a Member of Parliament, and I hope to feel that way again very soon.
	With regard to the fair funding of schools in my constituency, if I say that per pupil Hackney receives 6,170, Camden 6,161, Islington 5,812 and Haringey 4,987, the House will realise that the children in my constituency receive more than 1,000 less, which is 32 million less per year. Because Hornsey and Wood Green has all the characteristics of those three inner-London boroughs, it has to pay its staff inner-London salary rates, which are much higher than the outer-London rates that it receives, and that is unfair. Children face being taught in larger classes and schools have difficulty in obtaining teachers and equipment, and that has a deleterious effect. I have raised this in Prime Minister's questions and he was kind enough to acknowledge that that was an anomaly, and I have met the Minister for Schools and Learners twice. A review is under way that will report in 2011, on which I have been refused a representative to make the case for Haringey, and I have received no assurance of any day of reckoning that will reckon in a way that I might wish to see it reckoned. Today I bring to the House another request that the children in Hornsey and Wood Green should not continue to receive 1,000 less per head than neighbouring boroughs when we face some of the worst poverty and deprivation in the country and when we have for so long received so much less than comparable boroughs.
	I have lost five sub-post offices in my constituency and since those closures the queues have grown horrendously. People have to wait up to 50 minutes and the average wait is 12 minutes, which is quite a long time given that it includes those occasions when there is no waiting time at all. I have been working with the Crown post office in Muswell Hill, which has put every effort into reducing its very long queues, and by adopting queue management techniques and other methods it has managed to reduce the waiting time to three minutes. Highgate used to have two sub-post offices, one at the top of the hill in Highgate village and one at the bottom by Highgate station. The one in Highgate village was closed, making it difficult for older people and parents with buggies to get to the other one. People who receive those little slips saying that the postman tried to deliver something while they were out, which is a great nuisance but it happens to all of us, have to go to the Highgate station office, which is always impossibly busy, and if they go at 12 noon on a Saturday when everyone who works during the week goes, the queues extend out into the street and are incredibly long. I am sorrybut not that sorryto have to pillory that office in the Chamber, but it is a small, dirty, badly kept sub-post office where it is incredibly unpleasant for people to wait, and it is far too small to cope with the overspill that has resulted from the closure of the other office in Highgate village. There has been a devastating knock-on effect from the closures. I should like the Government to reconsider this and to re-open the Highgate village office, so that the elderly, home workers and mothers with buggies, who are all having a difficult time, do not have to queue for the length of time that they do currently. That goes for Alexandra post office too.
	I come now to one of the most serious issues that has arisen in my borough during the last year, and that is the tragedy of baby P, an issue on which I have spoken in the House a number of times, but I wish to raise it again. As the lead agency and the most to blame, Haringey council was rightly the first in line to get it most fiercely in the neck, and the consequences of that are well know through the media. There have been a number of sackings and a great revolution with the bringing in of a new director of children's services and new systems.
	In the last few weeks attention has been drawn to the health services, which I have sought to raise and put on the radar. I have always felt that the children's health services that led to the tragedy were a mirror image of what went on in Haringey council. In the last few weeks, the investigative journalist, Andrew Gilligan, from the  Evening Standard has exposed the failings within Haringey PCT and Great Ormond Street hospital. I have raised this matter in the House before, but it did not receive the same attention then that it did when it appeared in the  Evening Standard. Four paediatric consultants worked in the children's health services, which were commissioned by the PCT to Great Ormond Street, and I had often wondered why there was a locum. On inquiring, I found that since 2006, of the four consultant paediatricians, two had resigned, one was off sick and one was on special leave, so the locum, who so famously failed to recognise the broken back and ribs, was incredibly overworked. That is no excuse; obviously she was a dreadful doctor to miss such serious injuries. Nevertheless, that makes one think. What has been exposed in the past couple of weeks in the  Evening Standard includes the staffing shortages, which rather than being addressed have been denied by Great Ormond Street.
	Unfortunately, one of the results of the righteous indignation of the nation over Members' expenses is that those very important stories have not resulted in pressure being applied to the NHS management that I might have wished, but it is now carrying out a proper investigation into what was going on in health services.
	The spotlight passes from one agency to another and I am still pursuing a public inquiry because many issues have not yet received the full glare of public scrutiny. I have campaigned for the publication of serious case reviews. It is such secrecy that has kept events under the radar. When concerns are raised, whether by politicians, whistleblowers or whomever, ranks are closed and secrets are kept, and the only victims are the children whose problems are not resolved, while the defensive nature of such agencies is turned on the bringer of bad news. The baby P tragedy is the tip of the iceberg because of all the cases beneath the radar that never receive such publicity.
	We also need a public inquiry to look into what part the budget played. Ofsted has almost got away scot-free, yet it was Ofsted that gave Haringey a clean bill of health with a three-star rating while all this was going on. When the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families instructed it to go in again, it gave a one-star rating. Something is going on. Inspection agencies must be pure and above board and not be influenced in any way by the political situation or governance. There are issues around whistleblowing, secrecy, gagging orders, the budget and opposition politics. What should someone in a responsible position in a borough such as Haringey do if they cannot get any of the scrutiny processes to take on board an examination of child protection in the borough? Famously, Sharon Shoesmith told the overview and scrutiny committee, My department is not in need of any scrutiny. I commend it to you. We know what happened shortly after that, so a mechanism that triggers an early intervention must be introduced to the political process, too. There is no use in being so defensive. The argument follows on from what the hon. Member for Nottingham, North said: we must get all our processes right. The issue is not just about the House or expenses; it is about how we do politics. So I am still campaigning for a public inquiry.
	I shall briefly touch on another issue on which I have campaigned. Will Pike, a British citizen, was hideously injured as he tried to escape the Mumbai terrorist attacks. Terrorists were walking up and down the corridors in his hotel in Mumbai, looking for British and American citizens to kill. As far as the terrorists were concerned, it was a war. Mr. Pike escaped by climbing out of a window, but the sheets that he had tied together broke and he fell. He will be paralysed and in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. His father is a constituent of mine, and I am working with him.
	The expenses furore also hid a story in the news about the campaign to secure compensation in this country for British citizens who are injured in terrorist attacks abroad. If one is injured in this country by a terrorist attack, one is entitled to compensation, and our argument is that if it happens to someone somewhere else in the world, they are still our responsibility and we have a moral obligation to ensure that they come home and are looked after. I have asked for a meeting with the Prime Minister, but I have not had a reply yet. If I do not get one soon, I am going to contact Joanna Lumley to help me.  [ Laughter. ] Well, she seems to work the miracles!
	I shall briefly touch also on mental health issues in my constituency. St. Ann's hospital is our local mental health institution, and it has been consulting on closing one of its in-stay wards. We do not have the capacity to cope with the number of people who need admission to mental hospitals, and I met a series of service users who are absolutely desperate, because their loved ones need to go into hospital, but they cannot get in. When I brought all their considerations and problems to the attention of the management, I was told, We're going to improve care in the community. We will put in the underpinning and enable them to live in their own homes, because, of course, it would be preferable for them to live in their homes.
	However, such consultations ask people whether they agree with the principle, Is it better if you can keep someone in their own home? The same philosophy exists for older people. In principle, if the safety net were gold-plated and one could be sure that people would be looked after properly, having not just their medical health and mental health needs attended to, but their socialisation needs, one might be tempted to agree. However, the reality in Haringey and Hornsey and Wood Green falls far short of what people would need if such services were to exist, and I am scared that the process will go ahead regardless.
	The consultation has nothing to do with the real needs and desperate situations of those people and their families. I wanted to bring the issue to the Government's attention, because I am sure that Hornsey and Wood Green is not the only place in which mental health facilities are not adequate to cope with the great needs that people have. I want to get that point on the record, so that Barnet, Enfield and Haringey mental health trust sees what I have said about it, stops consulting, just listens and, I guess, does what I say.
	My speech is a whistle-stop tour, but my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) said that that was what one did in an Adjournment debate.

Chris Bryant: What does he know?

Lynne Featherstone: He knows everything. I go to him for advice; he is very wise Member.

Shailesh Vara: That is what he tells you.

Lynne Featherstone: That is what he tells me, and I believe him.
	I shall turn to the middle east, because the heart of the Stop the War movement is in my constituency. It was born in Muswell Hill, and it is a very powerful movement. There is also a reasonably largenot huge, but sizeableJewish population in my constituency. I am constantly lobbied by pro-Palestinians and pro-Israelis to take their sides, but I have always held the view that there is only one solution: to move forward and go for a two-state solution. The blame for past eventswho did whatgets us nowhere. If I have learned one thing from watching events in Northern Ireland, it is that the only way is forward. We can go as far back in history as we like, and one side or the other will have done something dreadful. However, both will have been at fault.
	I went to Israel and the west bank when I was shadow Secretary of State for International Development, and people there want peace and need their leaders to lead them to peace. As a Liberal Democrat, I believe that there should be a regional solution; I do not see how we can solve it without having the key players at the table. However, the Government seem to go quiet when there is nothing immediate in the news. During the Gaza war, we were jumping up every day to discuss such matters, but now that the war is over, things have gone very quiet. I am sure that the Minister will assure me that things are going on all the time which are not reported, but I am anxious that not enough goes on when the issue leaves the media headlines. The blockades that prevent food and aid from entering Palestine are a humanitarian issue and should not be a political issue. I therefore simply call on the Government to move the agenda forward, not to go sotto voce, and to keep the issue at the top of the agenda. Only peace in the middle east will bring peace to the wider world, and then I would not have to stand here begging for compensation for constituents when they are victims of terrorist attacks abroad.
	Lastly but not leastly

Chris Bryant: Leastly?

Lynne Featherstone: Okay, sorry. Last but not least, I shall turn to beer tax. I simply want to say that we all like going to the pub. I certainly like going there, even more in times of depression. I have been there quite a few times recently.

Chris Bryant: The pub or depression?

Lynne Featherstone: Both.
	The above-inflation increases in duty on beer are crippling local pubs, but they are the heart of our community. I must declare an interest, because my constituency office is on the first floor of a pub called the Three Compasses, on High street, Hornsey. It is a very good place to have a constituency office. It is secure, because I am not alonepeople are there until late at night, so to speak.

Chris Bryant: The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) gave you rubbish advice.

Lynne Featherstone: Did he? Well, anyway, the British Beer and Pub Association said that 2,000 pubs closed last year. Tax is 33.5 per cent. of the price of a pint of beer and drinking is lawful. I simply call for a fair tax. I do not want to see that mainstay of British society, the pub, go out of existence.

David Amess: Before the House adjourns for the Whitsun recess, I wish to raise a number of points. When I spoke in the Easter Adjournment debate, I said then that it would be the last Easter Adjournment debate before we had a general election, and, obviously, this will be our last Whitsun Adjournment debate before a general election. Much has happened since Easter, and we have only to look at the Chamber at the moment to see that all is not well with the House.
	Before my party leader called for an election, I felt that the paralysis that we in Parliament are suffering from was simply not tenable. I cannot conceive how the House can limp alongwith little or no business at all and Members, for whatever reason, feeling more and more disillusioned and stresseduntil April next year. Without being political, I should say that the country needs to be governed and the House needs to address very serious issues at the moment. For all sorts of reasons, I doubt whether Members can concentrate their minds fully on those issues. That is why we need a fresh mandate. Furthermore, given Mr. Speaker's decision to stand down, it is right that a new Parliament, with some new Members, should elect a new Speaker.
	I want to say something about expenses. When I was first elected to the House in 1983, it sat for five days a week; we were always here on Fridays. The first Bill on which I sat in Committee was the Rates Bill. Members may be appalled or they may laugh, but one of our sittings lasted 48 hours. It is always fine to be wise with hindsight, but the time to change the arrangements on second homes was probably when the House changed the hours that we sit and how we work. In those early days, I represented Basildon, which was even nearer this place than Southend, West, but I could not get home to my constituency at 3, 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning. With hindsight, I wish that I and others had spoken up when we decided to change our working hours and that we had dealt with the issue then. It is a sorry state of affairs, and I cannot see how we can continue in this way until April next year.
	I apologise for having been late to the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker; I had given Mr. Speaker notice of that. I was at Westminster cathedral for the installation of the Most Reverend Vincent Gerard Nichols. I took the right decision in leaving halfway through, because the two-and-a-half-hour service does not end until 2.30. It was a privilege to be in a packed church. Throughout his nine years as cardinal, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor has done a splendid job given all the difficulties faced by any Church at the moment.
	Sometimes I am guilty of nodding off during a priest's sermon, but I listened carefully to the sermon given by the Most Reverend Vincent Gerard Nichols. His message was that we should listen to one another; I do not know whether that always happens in this place, but his message was to a wider audience. He also spoke about faith schools, an issue that the House has considered. Furthermore, he said that just because people have strong views on certain issues, they should not simply be derided as bigots. His message was strong.
	Recently, I made a small contribution to  The Tablet, in which I said:
	We are seeing a decline in the number of people going to church and he
	that is, the new cardinal
	needs to address that and how the Church can be relevant in people's lives. The faith of society is also changing and bringing terrible problems which the Church can have a hand in solving. He needs to show the Government that the Catholic Church and Catholic education are resources worth tapping into, and that the Church can help with a lot of the problems that the Government is currently experiencing.
	I am sure that I speak for most fair-minded women and men in the House in wishing the new cardinal well with the challenges ahead.

Chris Bryant: I hate to correct the hon. Gentleman, but the Most Reverend Vincent Gerard Nichols is not the new cardinal; Cormac Murphy-O'Connor remains the cardinal. The hon. Gentleman is wishing the new Archbishop of Westminster well.

David Amess: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, but I think that the Most Reverend Vincent Gerard Nichols will become the cardinal.  [Interruption.] I am chair of the all-party group on the Holy See, and I had a word with the Pope during my audience with him last year; I have it on good authority that the Most Reverend Vincent Gerard Nichols may become cardinal. Cormac Murphy-O'Connor is looking forward to a happy retirement. The Most Reverend Vincent Gerard Nichols is the 11th Archbishop of Westminster to be installed. The irony is that this is the first time ever that a cardinal has been given the opportunity to retire; all the rest died in office. We wish Cormac Murphy-O'Connor a long and happy retirement.
	Apart from expenses, the biggest issue in my constituency is that of the proposed expansion of Southend airport. In all my time here, I have never had as many individual, handwritten letters from constituents as I have on that issue. We all get petitions signed by Benjamin Disraeli and Queen Victoria, and people run off photocopies of petitions for us to sign. However, I am talking about individual, handwritten letters, not just e-mails. It is obvious that residents of Southend, West are very exercised by the airport issue. It would be helpful if the Deputy Leader of the Houseperhaps not this afternoon, but in timeasked the appropriate Department to reflect on what I am going to say.
	The consultation period finished on 15 May, and as the local Member of Parliament, I felt that it would be wrong for me to give my opinion before that date on what should happen to Southend airport. I do not know whether any hon. Members have been to the airport, but when I first went to it, having arrived in Southend, I wondered how on earth an airport could be in the middle of such a heavily built up urban area with such narrow roads leading to it. For many years, the airport used to operate little flights to Jersey and Guernsey and aeroplanes would be repaired there; that was the bread-and-butter work.
	Never mind house building programmes, the Government have issued papers about the expansion and importance of regional airports, and that is how the whole process started. I think that I speak for all my constituents in saying that everyone wishes Southend airport well because of the jobs that it provides for local communities. However, when some years ago the then owner suggested that the airport should expand, there was meltdown. The then manager suggested that the beautiful 1,000-year-old church of St. Laurence be put on wheels and moved so many yards to allow the runway to expand and roads to be closed. English Heritage had something to say about that barking mad proposal, which caused huge upset in the constituency.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (James Duddridge) and I work closely together on Southend issues, but there is a huge divide about the airport issue. The reality is that the airport expansion will not affect Rochford and Southend, East. Any expansion of the facilities, particularly the runway, will impact only on Southend, West, and the aircraft will take off entirely over the area that I represent.
	The local authority has been under huge pressure. It has done the best that it can to consult and engage with the general public on this issue. However, I represent the highest number of centenarians in the country, and expecting senior citizens to e-mail replies and use that sort of technology is a complete non-starter. Having gone through the consultation document, I think that it raises more questions than it answers. We have not been given anywhere near enough detail about developments such as the new railway station, which will apparently bring people to the airport so that we do not have to worry about road expansions and closures. The proposal that the increased flights should take place from as early as 6.30 am until 11 o'clock at night is absolutely ludicrous. Unless I am missing the point, that means that my constituents will have complete freedom from any noise, pollution and all the rest of it only when they are asleep. That is complete madness.
	Of course, there are still many processes to go through, with the public inquiry and other such matters. Without boring the House any further, I would simply say that as the Member of Parliament for Southend, West, I will be representing the views of my constituents, as any Member would. At the moment, the overwhelming volume of responses that I have received in my officeI even have extra people dealing with those lettersare against the proposed expansion inasmuch as it was detailed in the consultation document.
	I am a trustee of the Industry and Parliament Trust, and I recently had the honour to lead a delegation to Indiawe went to Mumbai and to Chennai. It was a wonderful visit in every respect. In the previous year, we had been to Chinato Shanghaiso Members of both Houses have had the opportunity to see at first hand the two new emerging economies and all the opportunities that can be provided for business women and men to engage with them. This country is very popular in India; the Indians are very keen for us to trade more goods and services with them. I have already had a meeting with the Foreign Secretary, thanks to the good offices of Baroness Coussins and Lord Janvrin, who are leading the detailed lobbying following our trip, and we have had a debate in Westminster Hall. Like my colleagues on the trip, I am determined to build on the many friendships that were formed during that period.
	The Indian election, with the unexpectedly solid victory of the Congress party, is a powerful mandate for an agenda of reform. We can expect greater privatisation in infrastructure development and education reforms, which will present new opportunities to British exporters and investors. The Prime Minister, Mr. Singh, has already stressed the importance of India's secular leadership over parties that had sought to stress divisions of religion, caste and languagean equitable development.
	The new Government will implement a range of reforms of great interest to Britain. They have introduced into the upper House an insurance Bill allowing more foreign direct investment in the sector. There is also a banking regulations amendment, which allows for greater private participation in the banking system, and the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Bill, which seeks to establish a regulator to push through reforms in the pensions sector. We should also be prepared for an easing of foreign ownership restrictions in the telecommunications and retail sectors, and have in place the right regulatory architecture to take advantage of those developments. Our consulates are doing a splendid job, as is the British Council, but we should be even more proactive than we are at the moment.
	I want to praise Southend council's measures against excessive indulgence in alcohol by young people. In Southend, we have a very strong record of preventive work in encouraging young people not to develop bad habits with regard to alcohol. That forms part and parcel of the healthy schools programme, which we deliver in partnership with the primary care trust. A high proportion of our schools have received healthy schools accreditation because of the strength of their work in that area.
	I know that other hon. Members have touched on this issue, but there seems to be a problem with the funding of our schools generally. We can talk about the formula ad nauseam, but a number of our schools are struggling with the funding formula at the moment. I was recently lobbied about it by our excellent adult college of further education, which helps people with learning difficulties.
	There is certainly a funding problem in education generally, but putting that aside, Southend council has been proactive in the initiative to deal with alcohol abuse and encourage young people not to go down a particular path. Ofsted inspections of schools in Southend comment that a very high proportion deliver outstanding work in encouraging children and young people to be healthy. The impact of that work is demonstrated in what young people tell us through the so-called tell us survey, which indicates that 5 per cent. fewer young people in Southend misuse alcohol than is the case nationally. That is quite a large percentage.
	The full joint area review inspection of children's services in autumn 2007 said that a major strength was well received initiatives to prevent substance misuse. It stated:
	Initiatives to prevent substance misuse across schools, the voluntary sector and post-16 learning are good.
	The 'Getting on with the Blues' project at Southend United football clubthe club is starting work on its new stadium, which we hope will be available for various sporting activities during the Olympic gamesis an initiative aimed at primary school age children. It is being very well received and focuses on reducing alcohol misuse and antisocial behaviour, and more than 1,500 pupils have taken part in it. Evaluations of the project have found that most pupils, and all their teachers, rated it as excellent. The SOS bus and alcohol misuse outreach work have responded effectively to alcohol misuse by young people, and the alcohol misuse outreach worker has been effective in reducing reoffending and alcohol use by young people.
	Over the past 18 months, the work of our drugs and alcohol action team has strengthened further, and its work in supporting young people who need support and treatment because of alcohol abuse is now very effective. We also have further programmes to launch, so I hope that the Government are pleased with what Southend is doing in that respect.
	Two weeks ago, I had the privilege of being at the launch of an initiative at Westborough primary school, where we have a wonderful headmistress called Mrs. Jenny Davies. It is the largest primary school in Essex, and there we launched the English schools induction service. The service was designed by Blade Education to educate children aged between four and 11 whose first language is not English about the customs and rules of the British schooling system, in their native language. It is a pioneering multilingual service that promotes social cohesion by welcoming children and their families into primary education in the language that they fully understand.
	The service provides 21 informative, accessible and, most importantly, child-friendly films that are available in a wide variety of language settings. The films help to integrate children who do not speak English as their first language into our schooling system, and they provide them with a realistic expectation of school life and help them to understand what will be expected of them as they go through their years in school. It will be used in every one of our 37 primary schools in Southend, and there are plans to launch an online version in September 2009 and to expand the service to secondary schools. A recent survey conducted by Blade Education noted that numerous educators had commented on the need for the English schools induction service to be instigated nationwide, and I wish to make that point to the Government.
	I have a few comments to make about the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the police force in general. I get any number of complaints about all sorts of issues involving the police. I have the highest regard for the IPCC, which is headed by Nick Hardwick. He is an outstanding civil servant, who does a splendid job. However, I have lost count of the matters with which I have tried to assist constituents. The journey through the IPCC can go on for one, two, three, four and five years. At the end of it, the IPPC's powers to gain anything, such as apologies, compensation or change in police force practice, are zilch.
	In Essex, there is a high turnover of police officers, especially at a senior level. That is not a particularly good thing. They all seem to retire early, for all manner of reasons. I have lost count of the letters that I have received from senior officers, introducing themselves to me and suggesting yet another meeting, and so it goes on. That shows the difficulty in conducting IPCC inquiries.
	I have the highest regard for the Minister for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing. He said in a written answer to me that the IPCC is not responsible for imposing disciplinary sanctions on police forces or individuals. As we all know, Members of Parliament are currently in the limelight and we keep saying that no one is above the law. For that reason, we must address what is going on in our police forces.
	The evidence, findings and recommendations of IPCC investigations are apparently fed into the police performance and conduct systems as and when appropriate. What is the point of the IPCC if it cannot impose discipline on police officers who are found guilty of abusing their powers? When a police officer has a complaint upheld against him, he is offered words of advicewould not Members of Parliament like to be offered words of advice?from a senior officer. What message does that convey? More important, what deterrent is that? Other words such as guidelines and recommendations are worthless and meaningless, as is the expression, Let's have a review.
	When constituents complain and their representations are upheld, what words of advice are given to police officers and police forces? Who monitors the police complaints? How do respective police forces implement IPCC judgments? Commissioners come and go; the personnel change all the time.
	I suspect that I was one of the few Members of Parliament who responded to the consultation process to try to give the IPCC more power so that, when people's complaints were successful, at least small amounts of compensation could be paid and public apologies could be made.
	The Public Accounts Committee, which my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) admirably chairs, has done a splendid job in investigating the IPCC. In its 15th report, which was published only in March, the Committee made some excellent recommendations, including that the Home Office should clarify who is responsible for monitoring the implementation of IPCC recommendations. I have been in constant correspondence with Ministers about it, and the replies are just not satisfactory. I should therefore be grateful to the Deputy Leader of the House if he could, in due course, please find out from the Home Office what progress is being made on introducing an appropriate system.
	I repeat that I have the greatest regard for Nick Hardwick and the Minister for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing, who is responsible for the matter. I took the consultation seriously and made some suggestions, but when will genuine progress be made? There is no doubt that the whole system governing police complaints needs to be re-examined and reformed. I hope that the Public Accounts Committee report is acted on soon.
	The House has been indulgent, so I shall come to my last point, which is about fuel poverty. If we go outside this Chamber, we will see that it is a lovely early summer or late spring day. On days like today we forget about fuel poverty. We wait until November, and if there is a cold snap, we get hon. Members raising the issue. That is too late. Why did I and other hon. Members invest a year of our lives in 2000 to ensure that the then Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Bill became an Act? Why did we charge the Government with a duty to end fuel poverty, which we now know will not happen? Five million people are living in fuel poverty.
	I welcome the Government's recent initiatives to address fuel poverty, which include the community energy saving programme, enhancing funding for the carbon emissions reduction target and raising the maximum grant under the Warm Front scheme. Ofgem is finally to act on failings and unfairness in the competitive energy market, which acts to the detriment of disadvantaged consumers, although it is a serious indictment of the regulator that remedial action has been so long in coming.
	However, the result of raising the maximum Warm Front grant without increasing the scheme's budget is that fewer vulnerable households can be assisted. The Warm Front budget should be increased at least to maintain the number of households that can be assisted. We need a longer-term strategy to address fuel poverty through a national energy efficiency scheme to improve our entire housing stock. We need to introduce a social tariff combining consistent eligibility criteria and a degree of consumer benefit to provide certainty to vulnerable consumers and their advisers.

Paul Burstow: The hon. Gentleman is making an important point about fuel poverty. He is absolutely right that one should not wait until winter before one talks about it. Across the country, Eaga and the campaign to raise awareness of the benefits of the initiatives that he has mentioned work with hon. Members to encourage them to draw their constituents' attention to those schemes. I have such an initiative on 12 June, at the civic offices of the London borough of Sutton, which I hope my constituents might hear about through this debate.

David Amess: I applaud the hon. Gentleman for that initiative. It is not silly to do such things in summer. Each Member of Parliament needs to look at the situation in their constituency and try to do something now. The winter fuel payment needs to be reformed and extended to the most vulnerable and economically disadvantaged non-pensioner households.
	In these very difficult times, I wish you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and all the Officers of the House a very happy Whitsun.

Christopher Huhne: I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and other hon. Members, particularly those on the Government Benches, because I know that the Deputy Leader of the House is near boiling point in his exasperation at wanting to get away for the Whitsun recess. I can sympathise with that, because we had an important statement today on the Gurkhas and I had to rush out to celebrate with the Gurkhas who are outside. I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Bob Russell), along with myself and a number of others, was given one of these rather marvellous scarves as a token of the appreciation that the Gurkhas feel for the vote that the House took and which the Government have now respected.
	I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to one person in particular who has not had any credit in this whole saga, but who will, when the history is written, be seen as the key figure, notwithstanding the immense contributions made by so many other people, such as Joanna Lumley and others. That is a gentleman by the name of Peter Carroll, who picked up the campaign and ran with it six years ago in Folkestone, when the Gurkhas there went to their MP and failed to get support for their cause. Peter was the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate at the time and has been involved since. He embodies the old principle that a man can achieve anything in life if he is prepared to give someone else the credit for it. Peter has given everyone else the credit for the campaign, but he has been very much the prime mover behind it. We all, but particularly the Gurkhas, owe him a considerable debt of gratitude.
	Let me deal with some local issues before we adjourn for the recess. I am particularly concerned about the effects of recent Government decisions regarding the building programme of the Learning and Skills Council on both Eastleigh college and Barton Peveril college, both of which were seriously encouraged by the LSC to draw up plans for replacing old buildings and for expansion. There was an important new scheme for higher skills at Rookwood, which would be very important for higher-value manufacturing skills in our area, but all that is now on hold despite both colleges having spent substantial amounts on professional fees such as architects' fees. They have spent more than 500,000, but they are not guaranteed to get it all back from the Government. It is a complete shambles.
	It is necessary to go ahead with those schemes, which would provide important benefits to future generations, and there is no reason to prevent them from happening. The principle that one can borrow to invest is well established in every soundly run business and it ought to be well established within government, but that principle is at stake because of the LSC's attitude towards Eastleigh college, Barton Peveril college and many other colleges across the country.
	While I am discussing Eastleigh town, let me congratulate my local council and its leader, Keith House, on opening the first cinema complex for many years in the town centre. That is the latest step in the borough council's efforts to ensure that the town is able to survive in an age when an increasing proportion of retail sales are being sucked into the maw of the great supermarket groupsAsda, Sainsbury and Tesco are all represented nearby in my constituency, and it is an enormous struggle to ensure that there is still life in the town centre, particularly given that it was recently calculated that in one expansion Asda added the equivalent of 60 town centre shops in new floor space. Finding new ways of ensuring that the town centre stays alive is absolutely crucial to the success and health of Eastleigh. The opening of the cinema and bowling complex, and all the leisure activities that we hope will come with it, is an important step on which I congratulate the council.
	Voluntary work continues to be absolutely crucial in my constituency. I commend in particular the expansion of the street pastors scheme. There was a successful scheme in Fareham, and it has now been launched in Eastleigh. I very much look forward to the scheme having an impact in the constituency by preventing young people from feeling alienated, and by ensuring that they have things to do. We have put a lot of effort into opening youth facilities in the constituency, and the street pastors have a key role to play in pastoral care and in helping to prevent the problems in town centres on Friday and Saturday evenings of which Members across the country will be aware.
	A key local issue for my constituency is the proposal in the south-east plan for a new towna special development areanorth and north-east of Hedge End, effectively surrounding the hamlet of Borley Green and spreading into the Winchester constituency as far as Durley. The lack of public consultation on those proposals flabbergasts me. Constituents would have had more notice, through the planning process, of a porch being proposed by a neighbour than they have had about 6,000 new homes being landed on their doorstep in a way that will change irreparably the communities of Botley and Borley Green, as well as the surrounding countryside.
	If we propose to build an extension to our home, we have to apply for planning permission, and those most directly affected will be notified directly, in writing. In this case, however, the body whose responsibility for consulting on the south-east plan is clearly set out in statutenamely, Hampshire county councilsent out generalised literature, much of which was not delivered in the areas that will be most affected by this SDA. We strongly oppose the siting of a new town in this position, particularly as there has been such inadequate consultation and inadequate work done on alternative sites.
	Another example of the planning process letting down my constituents arises further south, on the Solent at Hamble. The county council is proposing to excavate a gravel pit on the old airfield. It would scoop up a metre from the surface, but the council has provided no evidence that that is necessary. Quite apart from the impact of the recession, there has been a steady reduction in the requirement for building aggregates. The effect of going ahead with this plan would be to turn a greenfield site into an industrial brownfield site, which would of course be much easier to develop for housing under the planning rules. I believe that that is the real agenda behind this plan. It is no accident that Hamble airfield is owned by a housing company, or that that company supports the building of the gravel pit. It knows that that is a back-door way of getting planning permission to build much more housing on the site in due course.
	Given how stressed Hamble lane and the access to the Hamble peninsula already are, and the sensitive nature of Hamble village itself, this development would be a disaster, and we should oppose it. I very much hope that the county council will relent, and recognise that the development is not needed to provide aggregates for the county and that we should look elsewhere in due course.
	I want to mention two more issues. I agree with hon. Members who have mentioned the problems afflicting local public houses. We recently calculated that public houses in south Hampshire were closing at an even faster rate than the national average. This is not merely a question of ensuring that alcohol tax increases do not rise substantially above the rate of inflation, as some Members and some lobbies have suggested, but of tackling some of the dramatic giveaways by the supermarket chains. These are loss leaders designed to bring in trade, and they involve selling alcohol at below cost price. This is an important issue that we need to deal with.
	This week, I was encouraged by the support for the campaign for a minimum price for alcohol. Some hon. Members have suggested that young people in particular would oppose that idea because they would not be able to afford to buy alcohol, so I was pleased to see that the National Union of Students, among others, now backs the campaign. A minimum price would have the clear effect of encouraging people back into their community public houses. It is greatly preferable that when people drink, they do so in company, and in way that will enable their public houses to continue to be the centre of the community, as they have been in so many parts of the country until now.
	Lastly, I would like to mention a pressing need that I hope the Government will address. I hope that the Minister will be able to provide us with some reassurance on the desperate need to provide local authorities with the powers to re-regulate buses. We have an extraordinary fight going on between the dominant local bus company, Bluestar, and a young, new, innovative competitor, Black Velvet, which to its credit attempted to provide a number of important new servicesconnecting, for example, Fair Oak, Chandler's Ford and Velmore with Eastleigh. When those services, which were greatly welcomed by my constituents, began, the dominant company, Bluestar, suddenly took an interest in the same routes and decided that it, too, would run services just three minutes ahead or 10 minutes behind those already provided in an attempt to scoop up all the business.
	What happened is that the new, innovative and young competitor, Black Velvet, was driven out of these routes and had to announce that it did not have the financial resources to continue to provide these services. Then, lo and behold, a few weeks after Black Velvet had pulled the plug on the new routes, Bluestar turned round and said that it was pulling the plug on them as well. Frankly, that is outrageous, bully-boy behaviour on the part of the dominant bus company. I intend to take the matter up with the Office of Fair Trading to see whether any competition laws can prevent this sort of predatory behaviour against a smaller innovative bus company. I urge the Government to provide time to debate the issue in the House and ensure that local authorities have the regulatory powers to ensure real competition between bus companies rather than this sort of anarchy, which leads to a worse service for my constituents. Frankly, it is a scandal.
	I would like to pay tribute to my local daily newspaper,  The Southern Daily Echo, for picking up the issue and campaigning on it. It is an important issue, particularly for those who rely on public transport. Those who do not have access to carsoften those on the lowest incomeswant better bus services and they are not getting them at the moment. It is time to look at the whole misguided policy of deregulating the buses, which emerged under the last Conservative Government, and to find a way of running them on a much better basis.

Shailesh Vara: I thank all hon. Members who have participated in the debate. There were perhaps not quite as many speakers as usual, but the quality was nevertheless there and a wide variety of subjects were coveredmostly local issues, but we have also strayed occasionally into the international sphere.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam), who has a reputation for being a diligent and conscientious MP, had a strong message for the Health Secretary about the South London Healthcare NHS Trust. I am sure that we all share his concern for the dire financial state of the new trust, and he was right to commend its staff, who are doubtless working under very difficult circumstances, not quite knowing what their future might be.
	My hon. Friend was also right to highlight the general difficulty of gaining physical access to hospitals. Yes, there is the issue of car parking, but public transport to hospitals is also important. I know that hon. Members who have rural areas in their constituencies will have considerable sympathy with my hon. Friend, as they know how difficult it can be for people living in villages where there is no public transport. They need to travel somewhere else to get public transport in the first place and then need to change again before they eventually reach the hospital. We certainly wish the management of the new trust well in dealing with all the difficulties it faces. We hope that they will be able to come up with the right answers for my hon. Friend's constituents.
	As always, the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) delivered a speech with considerable authority. He raised the crucial subject of the election of the new Speaker and in particular the role of the secret ballot. He said that this is an occasion for Parliament to exercise its own powers and not be bullied by the Executive. It is vital that we have a Speaker who will deal not only with the enormous challenges that we face, bearing in mind the current crisis, but with other issues, such as the need to reduce the number of Members of Parliament

Chris Bryant: That has nothing to do with the Speaker.

Shailesh Vara: It has everything to do with the Speaker, because it is the Speaker who presides over the House, and his guidance would be most welcome, although any change would be initiated by the Government. It would certainly be a House matter as well as a Government matter.
	The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) gave a typically passionate speech and he rightly dealt with the difficulties that we parliamentarians are experiencing. We all need to strive to sort those out and efforts are being made in that direction, but we all recognise that we have some way to go.
	The hon. Gentleman told us that his son is taking his driving test today, and we hope that he passes it. He pointed out the absurdity of having to travel such an enormous distance to the driving centre to take the test, which led on to the problem that people are having in accessing so many other public services, such as tax offices, health services and job centresas mentioned by my hon. Friend in an interventionbecause they are sited further and further away from where people live.
	Not for the first time, the hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of the A303. I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will make some effort to convey that message to the Transport Secretary. I have a similar problem with the A14 near my constituency. It desperately needs funds, but the date for the work keeps being put back. I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will also convey my concerns.
	The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome also spoke about the huge power that is wielded by unelected bodies. He will of course be aware that if the Conservatives are successful at the election and form the next Government, we will take a sword to powerful quangos and cut their number, and that will have the effect of also saving an enormous amount of money.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) made a powerful speech and demonstrated that he puts the interests of his constituents first in all that he does. All of us will have had some sympathy when he spoke of the closure of Vestas in his constituency, with the loss of 600 jobs, many of them skilled. His constituents will be concerned that the company has said that it hopes to have some new jobs in due course in the UK. The failure to mention the Isle of Wight specifically carries a powerful message.
	My hon. Friend was also right to pick up the issue of fallen stock and the worries and concerns of his rural community, especially the farmers. I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will convey those concerns to the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
	My hon. Friend also mentioned serious concerns about waiting lists for his constituents, an issue with which many of us can identify. We wish him well in his battle to try to overcome those difficulties.
	We then had a slight digression in terms of the tone of the debate in the speech by the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell). I hope that when the hon. Gentleman reads his speech in  Hansard, he will on reflection take the view that it was a wasted opportunity. He spent more time talking about the Conservative party and its leader than anything else, suggesting that he is a very worried man indeed. No doubt he will be issuing a local press release and a copy of his speech to his activists, but his constituents will be aware that the national media are reporting how well the Conservative party is doing and the leadership that is being shown in that direction. I am sure that his constituents will be able to make up their own minds, rather than being influenced by such a purely partisan speech.
	It was rather regrettable that attention was not paid to the clear convention that we have in this House about when hon. Members are mentioned. My hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) was mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, who did not do him the courtesy of providing advance notice. That courtesy was not extended to a Member of the other House who was mentioned, too, and that point was rightly mentioned by Madam Deputy Speaker.

Bob Russell: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Shailesh Vara: I have a reputation for being very willing to give way to many people, but on this occasion I shall not. The hon. Gentleman breached many conventions by not having the courtesy to give advance warninga point that was mentioned by Madam Deputy Speakerand so on that basis I shall not give way to him.
	The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone) gave a wide-ranging speech and spoke of the five post offices that have closed in her constituency. Many of us will identify with that situation, because many of us have lost post offices. Her plea that two of her post offices should be reinstated will probably fall on deaf ears, so I would not hold out too much hope.
	The hon. Lady was also right to follow up on the tragic case of baby P and the continued failings in the health service. Again, I suspect that there is cross-party support for her efforts to try to bring about better health services and to minimise the incidence of such tragedies.
	The hon. Lady spoke of the tragic case of the son of one of her constituents who was injured and paralysed in the Mumbai bombings. Clearly, there is an issue about compensation. People who are injured in the UK in such cases receive substantial compensation, but those British subjects who are injured in similar circumstances abroad do not get compensation. I wish her well in trying to get the meeting with the Prime Minister that she has asked for and I hope that he will give it to her without, as she said, the need for Joanna Lumley. I suspect that Ms Lumley has a lot of people wanting her support at the moment. I am minded to say that Esther Rantzen might be sitting by her phone, hoping that people will involve her, too, in some campaign or other.
	The hon. Lady also touched on the tragedy of the conflict in the middle east. Again, there will be cross-party support for the recognition that the issue needs to be resolved, particularly as it is serving as a recruiting sergeant for many other terrorist groups throughout the world.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) left a very important church service in order to join us, and we were very privileged to

Chris Bryant: We were blessed.

Shailesh Vara: I am not sure that my hon. Friend is in a position to bless us. We were, however, certainly privileged to have access to a private conversation that he had with the Pope; I am sure that all those people who read  Hansard will be grateful to have access to that conversation, too.
	My hon. Friend was right to pick up on the fact that the Government are simply limping along without a proper or full agenda. Given that the Queen's Speech contained more proposals from the Conservative party than from the governing party, the Government have clearly run out of steam. Perhaps the time is right to have an election to ensure that those who have ideas and proper, constructive policies are given the opportunity to put them to the country.
	My hon. Friend also mentioned his constituents' concerns about the proposed expansion of Southend airport. That point has certainly been taken on board and I hope that that message will be conveyed to the Transport Secretary by the Deputy Leader of the House.
	My hon. Friend also spoke about his recent visit to Mumbai and Chennai. He is right to point out that India and Chinahe told us about his visit to China last yearare the economic powerhouses of this century. He described the Indians' willingness to engage in trade with Britain, but it is important that we do not take our historic links with India for granted. Many other countries that do not have those links are cultivating business relationships with India actively and aggressively. We must compete alongside them in the market, and not sit back and rely on our historic connections to further the trade links that we need for our own economic purposes.
	I certainly wish my hon. Friend's local football club well with its initiative on young people, and he is right to say that we must not wait until winter before we debate fuel poverty. It is a very serious problem that affects many people, and it is something that we must debate whenever we can so that we can improve matters generally.
	Again, we were privileged to have the presence of the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne). It seems that several hon. Members had to leave functions to attend today's debate, but the hon. Gentleman had a good reason for not being here earlierhe was celebrating the Gurkhas' very successful campaign, and I am pleased that Peter Carroll has been given the recognition that he deserves. His name is now firmly embedded in the  Hansard record.
	The hon. Gentleman told us about the cinema complex being opened in his constituency. That is a not unfamiliar tale. Most of us have small towns where people have few activities to get involved and engaged in. Many such towns are being destroyed because retail outlets are closing as a result of supermarkets' ever increasing power.
	The hon. Gentleman described the lack of public consultation on a massive development in his constituency, and I am sure that all of us can understand how much that has upset his constituents. He said that supermarkets use loss leaders in the sale of alcohol to attract customers, and I understand that mineral water is sometimes sold at higher prices than alcohol. Clearly, that is something that needs to be looked into.
	Finally, may I take this opportunity, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to wish you a very happy and restful Whitsun recess? I should also like to extend those good wishes to all the people who work for the House and for hon. Members, and to the security staff who do so much to keep us safe.

Chris Bryant: The debates that we have before recesses are very bizarre. They are a potpourri, a smorgasbord, an array of tapas, a pick'n' mix of an event to which little bits and pieces of debate are brought along. The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone) admitted as much when, in a rather random way and after telling us about the pubs that she regularly frequents until a late hour, she said that she was going to turn to the middle east.
	As I understand it, many years ago these debates were answered by the Prime Minister. An hon. Member would speak, the Prime Minister would reply, and that process would go on until the House was exhausted. On one occasion, an ageing Winston Churchill took 17 hours to respond to a pre-recess debate that ended in the small hours of the morning. He went to the Tea Room for a mutton chop, some chips and a cigar, and received a standing ovation as he walked in. I do not suppose that there will be many chops left by the time I finish my speech, and I am sure that I will not get a standing ovation.
	The Whitsun recess debate is the oddest of all, I think. The vast majority of people who enjoy the holiday do not necessarily think of its religious significance. I used to be a curate and so it fell to me to preach the sermon on Trinity Sunday, which is the one that follows Whit Sunday. The concept of the trinity is a most complicated piece of theology, and very difficult to communicate to people. It was left to the curate to explain the inexplicablenot unlike what happens with these debates. I had some difficulty, since some of my own theology was a little random too; for many years I laboured under the misapprehension that the Lord's prayer began, Our Father, a chart in heaven, Harold be thy name.
	Whitsun, of course, is about Pentecost: it is when the Holy Spirit, as the shadow Leader of the House mentioned today, descends on the apostles and they speak in tongueshence the bishop's hat is in the shape of fire on top of their heads. Of course, at the time everyone thought they were drunk; and the apostles replied that they could not be drunk because it was only 11 o'clock in the morning. That reminds me that we have had rather a lot of references to alcohol todayarguments in favour of a change in the Government's position on beer duty and a difference of views about how we should support pubs and whether we should be cracking down on under-age drinking. I am conscious that George Bernard Shaw said of alcohol and Parliament that alcohol allowed Parliament to do at 11 o'clock at night what it would never, ever think of doing at 11 o'clock in the morning.
	The first of our speakers was the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam), who spoke largely on health issues relating to his constituency, particularly the restructuring of the South London Healthcare NHS Trust. I always think it slightly odd when Members refer to operating deficits in hospitals, but the hon. Gentleman spoke about the need for financial restructuring and for targets and gave us what he called his worm's-eye perspective of what is going on locally. He referred specifically to the problems of staffing in his local hospitals, and of physical access. He pointed out that it is important for people to have public transport access to local hospitals. He mentioned the issue of having to change buses. I note that he, in his political career, has changed bus once or twice. He originally stood in 1966, when I was four years old, as the Labour candidate in Folkestone and Hythe. Then he was an Under-Secretary of State for Transport from 1976 to 1979, and an Under-Secretary of State for Health in a Government of a rather different complexion from 1995 to 1997. I always think that versatility is a very fine thing.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) is an Atlas in this House in his attempts to hold the constitution on his shoulders, and to ensure that the House stands for the highest possible standards and takes its role as a democratic body extremely seriously. I have read a great deal of what he has written and have been involved in many campaigns for reform with him; I pay tribute to him. He said that MPs have deluded themselves that they have power, because really it is only the Government who have power in the House, and he said that we ought to be doing more about that.
	I agree with many things that my hon. Friend said, but in one respect I disagree. He said that the secret ballot was a very important tool. It is true that Gladstone's Reform Act 1872, which introduced the secret ballotwhich, incidentally, was vigorously opposed by the Conservative party at the timebrought about a very significant change in our democracy and took away a great deal of corruption. Nevertheless, this House has rightly tended to eschew secret ballots, because it is important that our voters know how we do our business and how we voted.
	I note that recently, when the Spanish Parliament had to decide whether Spain should join the war in Iraq, it had a secret ballot. If this House had gone down that route, I think that our voters would have been very angry with us.

David Heath: There would not have been a war.

Chris Bryant: The hon. Gentleman says that there would not have been a war, but I do not think that that is an argument for a secret ballot; I am sure he is not making that argument. I concede that there may be some areas where we should use secret ballots in the Houseperhaps for elections such as that for the Speaker.
	There is another area of disagreement. Several hon. Members, including the shadow Deputy Leader of the House, have suggested that the new Speaker must review how many Members of Parliament there should be. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North said that a new Speaker, whether he or she, should radically reform this House. I issue a word of caution. I believe that the Speaker should be the servant of the House, and Speaker Lenthall made that point clearly. An important change took place, and although a new Speaker still has to be approved by Her Majestythere is a procession to the House of Lordsthe Speaker is the servant of this House. We cannot evade our responsibilities by expecting a Speaker to bring about the reform that we need.

Graham Allen: I have two points of clarification to make, because I know that my hon. Friend is not trying to misrepresent me. First, I did not at any point say that the House should have secret ballots on proposals discussed on the Floor of the House, on policy matters, or even on going to war, although, as the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) pointed out, perhaps such a ballot might have produced a different result. My view is that there should be secret ballots on the three particular House matters that I mentioned, because Members would then clearly vote with their conscience, as opposed to being swayed by the Whips.
	Secondly, I am not saying that the Speaker should be a superman or woman, and should attempt to reform the House radically. The Speaker should, in the Minister's words, be the person who facilitates the will of the House. Sometimes, as I am sure my hon. Friend will admit, that will has been thwarted by Government, or the alternative Government. Let the House speak freelythat is how I would put the case for a secret ballot in certain circumstances.

Chris Bryant: Of course I have no desire to misrepresent my hon. Friend. I have two points to make. First, strangely, on the occasion to which I referred, a secret ballot was held in the Spanish Parliament because the Spanish Socialist party, which was opposed to the war, thought that more people would vote against the war if there was a secret ballot. In fact, some of its Members must have voted in favour of the war because there was a secret ballot. So one can never quite prejudge how a secret ballot would operate. However, I think that we are all agreed that MPs should not seek to obscure from their voters how they intend to vote on any public policy position. It is a rather different matter when we are electing a Speaker. Anyway, the House has already made a decision about the direction in which we should move. It is important to note that when the first SpeakerPeter de la Mare, I thinkwas elected in the 14th century, it was really an appointment by the Crown. We have moved a long way from that, and that is an important principle.

Shailesh Vara: I wish to clarify a point. Clearly, I recognise that the Government would initiate any reduction in the number of Members of Parliament. What I was trying to say is that the Speaker, by virtue of sitting in the Chair, would have to oversee such a radical change. Clearly, the initiative comes from the Government, but at the end of the day, the Speakera servant of the House, as we have just been toldwould oversee what happens. There is a distinction, and I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House appreciates it.

Chris Bryant: Well, I am trying to appreciate it, but I am not getting any closer, I am afraid. Perhaps we will have to have a discussion about that at some point, without delaying the rest of the House.
	I hope that I am not breaking any convention when I say that the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath)I got his constituency right, for the first timetold me, before coming into the Chamber, that he had only one word for his speech: disconnection. None the less, he managed to connect his thoughts, more or less. He said that the Commons had been trodden through the mud, and that there had been almost irreparable damage to our reputation; I think that those were his precise words.
	I do not think that anybody in this House is labouring under the illusion that there is not a significant need for reform, and I very much hope that all parties will be able to come together to ensure that that reform comes about. The democratic process, based on universal franchise, is something that people fought for through generations in this country, and something that we all uphold. Without the opportunity to change society through the democratic process, we have no means of changing it, and we cannot even hope for a fairer or better world. The hon. Gentleman called for a massive programme of democratic reform to empower the individual, and I think that he knows from many things that I have said, both at the Dispatch Box and as a Back Bencher, that I wholeheartedly agree with many of the measures for which he has campaigned.
	The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner), who often speaks in such debates, talked about the problem in his constituency in relation to Vestas, which has announced a 90-day consultation on the closure of its factory, with the loss of about 600 direct jobs. He will be only too aware of the fact that one of the problems for Vestas is that its market is not just a UK one. In fact, much of its plant supplies the American market, because the blades that it builds are the size mostly used in the USA, rather than in the UK.
	The Government are keen, especially in a recession and because we want to tackle climate change, to make sure that we provide proper support for renewable energy industries. That is why there has been 4 billion of new capital from the European Investment Bank for UK renewable energy projects, and 405 million to support low-carbon manufacturing, including wind projects in the UK. We are keen to do more. I will pass the hon. Gentleman's comments on to the responsible Ministers, so that if there is anything further that they can do, they have an opportunity to do so.
	Likewise, I will pass on the hon. Gentleman's concerns about the disposal of fallen stock. He pointed out that there was now official derogation for burial, but he said that there were significant worries about whether the burial of farm animals was safe and sensible, and whether there would be problems for water conduits. He also raised a series of other issues that needed to be treated seriously, and I will pass those messages on.
	Finally, the hon. Gentleman referred to waiting lists, and the need constantly to bear down on them. Some people say that it is wrong to have targets in the health service, because somehow or other that interferes with medical considerations. When I was first elected, my own experience in south Wales was that many people who regularly came to see me were suffering from serious conditions, having been told that they would have to wait three, four or five years, particularly for orthopaedic operations. Those waiting lists do not exist any more in my area. Health is a devolved responsibility in Wales, so it is not the Government's particular responsibility, but I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman that if there is a long waiting list, that can exacerbate poor mental health, let alone poor physical health.
	The hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell), contrary to what the hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Mr. Vara) said, made a rather good speech. He spent quite a lot of time attacking the Conservative party, which is obviously a sane and sensible thing to do. I do not have an axe to grind in that particular enmity, as both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats lost their deposit in the Rhondda and indeedwell, I will not say any more about that. The hon. Gentleman talked rather a lot about the Members' bathroom, which he seems regularly to have shared with the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron). I do not want to go there, in more ways than one. He said that Colchester is the fasting growing area in Britain.

Bob Russell: It has a growing population.

Chris Bryant: Well, as an area, it cannot be growingit must still be the same size that it always was. I presume that he meant that the number of people living in Colchester was growing, or that the people were the fastest growing people in Britain. He sought to portray Essex as having had a despotic regime, and if it had a Conservative council, I am sure that he was absolutely right.
	The hon. Gentleman raised several important education matters. He is absolutely right that, whenever there is a discussion about school sizes and the availability of local schools, we need to ensure that there are safe routes to school and that Every Child Matters is not just the name of a programme or a slogan, but really means something. I hope that the local council in my constituency will reconsideragain this is a devolved issuewhether to close Aberllechau primary school and to merge the two schools in Maerdy. I do not think that the proposals will end up providing precisely the kind of education that the children in those relatively isolated communities very much need
	The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green, in her randomised speechI do not seek to be rude; that was me seeking to be niceas I think she herself admitted, referred to funding issues that she has already raised with the Schools Minister, and I will pass those comments on. Likewise, she raised issues regarding Highgate post offices and she referred to the average waiting time in some post offices being very lengthy, which is something that the Post Office must consider closely. In my constituency there are issues on which we have to fight. One of the difficulties, again in Maerdy, is that the local sub-postmaster has simply not wanted to continue because the business is not economic. I am glad that the Post Office is committed to ensuring that there will always be a post office in Maerdy.
	The hon. Lady raised the important issues of baby Peter. All hon. Members have been very troubled by all the stories that we have seen in this regard, not least because none of us wants to enter into a culture where social workers receive all the blame for society's ills. Many of us will want to pay tribute to the work that social workers do, often in a very pressurised and sometimes under-resourced situation. The Government sought to act swiftly and I know that the hon. Lady has taken up issues directly with Ministers. If there are other issues that she wants to pass on, I am sure that she will.
	The hon. Lady referred to her constituent in Mumbai, an interesting issue that I will pass on to the relevant Minister. I am afraid that I do not know the answer to that question. She also referred to mental health facilities in her area. My mother was an alcoholic and made quite a few visits to mental health facilities, so I know the importance of ensuring that no stigma attaches to mental health problems. That means that facilities must not be dirty, grotty and a relic of the Victorian era, but provide the best mental health support possible. Ethically and morally, there is no difference between a mental health problem and any other kind of health problem.
	The hon. Lady referred to the middle east and suggested that the Government go quiet when there is not a big row going on in the world, but that is far from the truth. Ministers are actively engaged on a day-to-day basis in trying to pursue the middle east peace process on precisely the grounds that she suggested, namely that we must have a two-state solution, which means an Israel secure and safe in its borders, and a sustainable Palestinian state. Those are difficult to achieve, butwho knows?perhaps with the change of Administration in the United States of America, a brighter dawn might appear along the road. The hon. Lady also referred to the beer tax and the fact that she spends a great deal of time above a pub.
	The hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess), who, again, often takes part in these debates, graced usI think that that is the best way to put itwith his presence having just come from His Grace. He referred to how the House used to sit for five days a week and that one sitting went on for 48 hours. I am not sure that that was necessarily a golden age or that it led to the better scrutiny of legislation, but one thing that I am certain of is that the job of a Member of Parliament has radically altered over the past 20 to 30 years. Whereas in the past it was sufficient to visit one's constituency twice a year and constituents did not mind if it was only once a year, now constituents have a completely different expectation of how much time we spend in our constituency, and, to be honest, of how much we bring up their specific concerns in the House. In the 19th century, hon. Members just did not do that, so we must acknowledge that there is a very changed environment. If we were to surrender all Fridays to being here and not in our constituencies, our constituents would find that odd.
	The hon. Gentleman referred to Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, and I too want to pay tribute to him. I first met him in Lima in Peru in 1986 at about 11 o'clock in the evening, when I think he was imbued with the holy spiritlet me put it that way. I was an Anglican, but he was not very keen to get up for the 8 o'clock mass the next morning and suggested that he might ordain me on the spot so that I could say mass instead. I pointed out that as far as his church was concerned, I was a schismatic who had not even been properly baptised, so we did not proceed with the ordination.
	The hon. Gentleman referred to issues relating to Southend airport, which I will pass on to the relevant Minister. Likewise he talked a great deal about alcohol and young people, which is a matter that many of us have wanted to address because the issues of teenage pregnancy and antisocial behaviour that flow from the large amount of alcohol that many young people in the country drink fill us all with concern.
	The hon. Gentleman also raised a specific issue about which I know little, I am afraidnamely, who monitors and pursues the Independent Police Complaints Commission. I shall raise those matters, as well as the matter of the Warm Front budget, with the relevant Ministers.
	The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) also graced us, finally, having spent some time with Joanna Lumleyanother person whom I first met many years ago. Indeed, I met her a few weeks ago, when she fired the starting gun for the House of Commons versus the House of Lords swimming competitionwhich I won. She is a very fine woman, and the whole House will want to acknowledge that, today, we have made significant progress on the issue of the Gurkhas. Indeed, everybody has already paid tribute to that work.
	The hon. Gentleman referred to retail sales and small shops in towns. Again, as one who has a constituency that comprises a string of smallish towns, I recognise that such facilities are absolutely essential. People need local shops and a local community. Although many people want to shop at Tesco, Sainsbury's or wherever, or to go to a big, multi-screen cinema, because they want that degree of choice, it is important to ensure that, with local regeneration, we have strong town-centre policies.
	The hon. Gentleman said that a new town is to be built in his constituency, but I think that he exaggerated matters a little. I know that it is in the nature of Liberal Democrats to exaggerate, but [ Interruption. ] Yes, he is allowed to smile.  [ Interruption. ] You see? He agrees with me: he agrees that it is in the nature of Liberal Democrats to exaggerate.  [ Interruption. ] No, they are all smiling now, so they all agree that is in the nature of Liberal Democrats to exaggerate. However, the hon. Gentleman exaggerated a bit when he said that people have to get planning permission for a porch. It would have to be a pretty big porch, although we have learned, of course, that quite a few MPs do have quite large porches.
	The hon. Gentleman also referred to the potential gravel pit on Hamble airfield, and spoke about the regulation of buses. I shall pass on those issues to the relevant Ministers.
	I am developing a growing sense of fondness for the hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Mr. Vara), my opposite number, although it was hampered this afternoon by his clear inability to understand the role of the Speaker, and by his gratuitous demand for money for the A14when he did not choose to mention that the Rhondda Fach relief road also needs to be completed. He was a bit rude about the hon. Member for Colchester, and, although it is always fun to be rude to him, none the less, I did not think that he quite deserved it on this occasion.
	Interestingly, the hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire said, perhaps it is time for a general election, so the Conservative party is already sliding away from the Leader of the Opposition's formal position yesterday, when he shouted and screamed across the Chamber, demanding a general election. Now, it is only, perhaps it is time for a general election. The hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire also said that it is time for a party with concrete proposals for this countrywell, if only even he himself believed that his party had such concrete proposals. The truth of the matter is that his party has absolutely no proposalseven for its own self.

Shailesh Vara: rose

Chris Bryant: No, I shall not take any more from the hon. Gentleman, because he knows that he has got it wrong. My fondness is not so extensive as to allow him to intervene again, because I want to talk briefly about my constituency.
	I shall raise three brief issues. For my constituents, the single most important issue affecting them is the recession, and I think that they want us to look at how we can help them in their individual situations and ensure that people do not have their homes repossessed. I was struck a few weeks ago by somebody who came to my surgery and said that he had just passed the 13-week mark after being made unemployed and was therefore able to get support for his mortgage, meaning that he would not lose his home. We sometimes forget that the things that we change in Parliament dramatically and personally affect people's life opportunities.
	The same goes for employment opportunities in my area. Historically, my constituency has had a high level of incapacity benefit claimants, so it is important that jobs are available to people, and that is why I am very supportive of one of the major projects that the Ministry of Defence still wants to advancenamely, the defence training academy at St. Athan, which I know would make a dramatic difference to my patch.
	Finally [ Interruption. ] I can see out of my left eye, my Whip, whose eyebrow is rising with expectation at Finally. I should like to extend my thanks and those of my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House to all the staff of the House and, in particular at the moment, because it has felt like we have been under siege over the past few days, to the police, who have been policing in Parliament square. It is very difficult to strike that complex balance between ensuring that Parliament can do its business and allowing people to demonstrate and exercise their democratic freedoms.
	We also thank the Clerks of the House, whether wigged or not, the Doorkeepers and all those who serve us with food and drink. I extend my good wishes for Whitsun to all Members. Whitsun was originally always conceived of as Pentecostas a moment for inspiration. For most people, it then became just a holiday. I should like to end by reciting Whitsun, a poem by Sylvia Plath:
	This is not what I meant:
	Stucco arches, the banked rocks sunning in rows,
	Bald eyes or petrified eggs,
	Grownups coffined in stockings and jackets,
	Lard-pale, sipping the thin
	Air like a medicine...
	A policeman points out a vacant cliff
	Green as a pool table, where cabbage butterflies
	Peel off to sea as gulls do,
	And we picnic in the death-stench of a hawthorn.
	The waves pulse like hearts.
	Beached under the spumy blooms, we lie
	Sea-sick and fever-dry.

Claire Ward: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
	 Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

PETITION
	  
	Council Tax Benefit

Paul Burstow: I rise to present a petition on behalf of the Royal British Legion and others. It reads as follows:
	The Petition of members of The Royal British Legion and others,
	Declares that some 25,000 signatures were added to a petition delivered to Number 10 Downing Street in support of Council Tax Benefit being rebranded as a rebate; further declares that over a third of veterans and their dependants over 65 live on an income below the minimum required for healthy living and that Council Tax bills are probably the largest household expense for this age group; notes that uptake amongst pensioners of Council Tax Benefit has dropped sharply since the abolition of the old domestic rates system's rebate and that 1.5bn of Council Tax Benefit is left unclaimed by pensioners each year; further notes that more than half of the ex-Service community think veterans would be more likely to claim Council Tax Benefit if it was known as a rebate.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to commit now to rebranding Council Tax Benefit as a rebate before the time of the next general election
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	[P000367]

COUNCIL TAX BENEFIT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. (Claire Ward.)

Paul Burstow: My theme in this Adjournment debate is similar, if not identical, to that of the petition that I have just presented. I am grateful for the opportunity to raise a matter of interest not only to my constituents but to those of all hon. Members right across the country. This debate is about a modest measure, but one that could make a significant difference.
	I want to urge the Minister to change a name, but not my name, her name or your name, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I urge the Minister to rename council tax benefit council tax rebate or council tax relief. Some might ask, What's in a name?, but I think that, at a stroke, the Minister could help hundreds of thousands of the poorest people in our country by means of this simple measure. Furthermore, doing so should not cost a great deal of money, although forms and the like would have to be reprinted. A huge amount of money that goes unclaimed every year could be unlocked.
	In far too many cases, people living in poverty are still paying full council tax although many of them are eligible for council tax benefit. They either do not know that or choose not to claim it, and that is what this debate is about. Words really matter; they can change behaviour and affect the level of take-up. Calling the financial assistance available to mitigate the full cost of council tax a benefit is a deterrent and depresses the level of take-up.
	Council tax benefit has the lowest take-up of any of the means-tested benefits, and according to the research presented to the Select Committee on Work and Pensions and its predecessors, it has been falling for the past 10 years. As many as 2.95 million people are missing out on this benefit, which would go some way towards helping them to reduce and cope with the burden of paying council tax. The Department's own estimates put the amount of unclaimed council tax benefit at 1.8 billion overall. If we drill down into that figure to try to understand what it means for pensioners and other groups within the population, we find that many retired people who are entitled to council tax benefit do not claim. Indeed, the Lyons inquiry into how we should reform or, in my view, replace council tax found that as many as 1.3 million eligible pensioners are not claiming. According to the research, that would add up to about 1.5 billion left unclaimedthe figure cited in the petition I presented on behalf of the Royal British Legion.
	After a decade of falling take-up, it is now vital that everything possible is done to boost take-up and help hard-pressed families and pensioners. A recent poll conducted by ComRes on behalf of the Royal British Legion, partly to give the Minister the evidence that she feels is necessary, found that seven out of 10 people believe that the stigma attached to that label of benefit is a major obstacle to the claiming of council tax benefit. That is clearly a serious problem. The Minister will know how discredited and unpopular council tax is. I am sure that, like me, she receives letters from constituents unhappy with the level of council tax, and there is a lot behind that. A lot needs to be understood and changed about the system, not least the fact that it does not reflect people's ability to pay.
	Falling take-up of the financial relief available to help poorer households makes matters worse for them. That is why I chose to raise this matter on the Adjournment, particularly following my discussions with the Royal British Legion, which does a truly tremendous job on behalf of veterans and Army service personnel in this country. Research that it has commissioned showed that 38 per cent. of older veterans and their spouses, widows and widowers are living on an income below that necessary for healthy living. On the day that the Home Secretary came to this House and rightly acknowledged the strength of feeling and support in the country for the Gurkhasa change of heart that is welcome but was triggered by a debate and a defeat for the Government on a Liberal Democrat motionit is very important that we recognise the debt that we owe not only to the Gurkhas but to all service personnel. The Legion's research, which found that veterans and their families who are eligible for council tax benefit would be more likely to claim it if it were called a rebate rather than a benefit, should be weighed heavily in the balance in the Minister's response.
	I have just presented a petition on behalf of 25,000 people calling on the Government to rebrand council tax benefit as a rebate. It is important to bear in mind how many people think that this is a logical and simple but small step that can help many of our fellow citizens. The piece of research that was done at the request of the Ministerthe ComRes pollalso found that three quarters of people believe that such a renaming would help to boost take-up. Only last week, at the Legion's annual conference, its director general, Chris Simpkins, called for the Government to announce a timetable for making this change. I hope we can hear something about that in the Minister's reply.
	The Minister will know that the Select Committee's work on this issue has been important; indeed, there is clearly cross-party support for the change. In its most recent report, it said:
	We believe that Council Tax benefit should be treated as part of the tax system to more accurately reflect its true nature and have called on the Government to remove the benefit label as a first step.
	In response to the Committee's clear recommendation, the Minister's Department said:
	The Government acknowledges that renaming CTB to reflect its true nature as a tax rebate may encourage more people to claim their entitlement.
	To be honest, that is where the Department's response should have stopped, because it was encouraging. However, having acknowledged the value of renaming the benefit as a rebate, it began to question that and contradict itself. I took heart, however, because the final sentence of that part of the response went on to say that it would be kept in mind as a suggestion. I hope that having kept it in mind and continued to reflect upon it, the Government can make progress.
	In 2004, the then Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister concluded that the
	stigma attached to CTB being presented as a 'benefit' rather than, more accurately, a 'relief' from a tax
	contributed to
	the dismal rate of take-up.
	It said that after receiving evidence from a wide range of organisations and having Ministers before it.
	The view that changing the name would make a difference is not just mine or that of the Royal British Legion or campaign organisations; it is the view of the Audit Commission, a reputable, well respected organisation with a breadth of knowledge and experience that should not be underrated. It is the view of the Institute of Revenues Rating and Valuation, Help the Aged, Citizens Advice and the Local Government Association. The expertise and knowledge of those organisations should not be ignored, and the new evidence provided by ComRes polling, to which I have referred, gives the quantitative evidence of the deterrent effects of the benefit label that the Minister was seeking. I hope that she can give a positive response to that call today.
	I turn in passing to a related issue. Political will and intelligent use of data could ensure that people, particularly pensioners, are paid benefits and council tax relief automatically, without the need for claims. Improvements to data sharing between the Department for Work and Pensions, local authorities and Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs could be used to identify the pensioners who are most likely to be eligible for financial support. I hope that the Minister will take seriously that suggestion, which has been proposed by Help the Aged and others. Help the Aged, in particular, has suggested that there should be some piloting of such data sharing so that there can be automatic payments. That would help to refine the way of working and improve methods to minimise the risk of overpayment. At the very least, it would widen the net of people who are potentially eligible but currently go unnotified and unnoticed, and who as a consequence do not get around to making an application.
	I hope that the Minister will say a bit more about the Government's plans to boost take-up, including the part that data sharing can play and what other strategies are being deployed. In this time of recession, when families and pensioners are feeling the pinch more than ever and when evidence shows that many of our older veterans are living in poverty, this modest step is worth taking. The misnaming of council tax relief or rebate as a benefit has a deterrent effectthe evidence is clear, as is the weight of support for the change.
	I do not pretend that renaming would be some sort of panacea or a magic fix to a significant problem. However, those living on the bottom 10 per cent. of incomes are paying the highest proportion of that income in tax. It is surely right, proper and fair that we take every step we can to reduce that burden. The Work and Pensions Committee described the name changes as a first step, and it is a worthwhile one. I hope that the Minister can take that step today and give us some good news that will help to boost eligibility and raise take-up of council tax benefit.

Kitty Ussher: I start, as is customarybut I particularly mean it on this occasionby congratulating the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) on securing the debate. I say that I particularly mean it because it is the culmination of an excellent campaign. He has raised an important issue and one that is dear to our hearts, as I shall explain.
	It is not just the hon. Gentleman whom we need to congratulate. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, North (Joan Ryan) had a ten-minute Bill on this very subject a few weeks ago. A vast array of Ministers listened with great sympathy to the points that she put across. She, in turn, has been working shoulder to shoulder with the Royal British Legion, which the hon. Gentleman rightly mentioned. We should put on record today our appreciation and thanks to Chris Simpkins, who led the campaign, and whom I had the pleasure of meeting only a few days ago. He represents hard-working and honest people who served their country in their own way, including the 25,000 who signed the Royal British Legion petition.
	As well as signing the petition, members of the Royal British Legion have campaignedin their hundreds, as I know for certain, but probably in their thousands to raise the issue with their constituency Members of Parliament, including me in my capacity as Member of Parliament for Burnley. Age Concern and Help the Aged have been partners in the campaign. On behalf of the Government, I would like to thank everybody who has been involved in one of the best campaigns in recent years. It certainly attracted the Government's attention. I also thank the many hon. Members who took the trouble to respond to what their constituents were telling them, and who raised the matter with Ministers on behalf of their constituents.
	In the short time that remains, I would like to answer the specific points that have been made, say a little about where we are on the matter, and perhaps say something about other measures that we have in hand to boost take-up of council tax benefit. We are keen to do that because, as the hon. Gentleman says, we are as concerned as he is that take-up is not as near 100 per cent. as it could be; it is quite a bit less than that.
	I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and we are listening. We are in the process of working through the issues, and I will explain what we believe to be the outstanding issues shortly. He asked for a timetable, and I hope that we will have a meeting at which we can agree a road map for a timetable. I have a further meeting, which was arranged only today, with the Royal British Legion on 3 June. By then, I hope that we will have a consensus about the best way in which to progress. My attitude is positive and I am keen to help when possible, but we need a shared analysis of the precise problems and what we should do about them before we can change policy.
	I shall outline the outstanding issues. If we changed the name of council tax benefit to rebate or reliefthe hon. Gentleman did not state his preference, but that can be discussedwould it require primary legislation? Our advice is that it probably would because council tax benefit exists in law, and the easiest way in which to make a change, should we decide to do that, is to do it in law. We could thus avoid the problem of having to explain in forms and letters to claimants or potential claimants that council tax relief or rebate means what is defined in law as council tax benefit. We therefore believe that primary legislation is required.

Paul Burstow: I am grateful to the Minister for engaging with the issue so constructively and positively. She talks about legislation. The right hon. Member for Enfield, North (Joan Ryan), who introduced the ten-minute Bill, has provided a useful platform to air not only the issue but the mechanism whereby the House could, in this Session, put on the statute book something that no party opposes and could thus progress swiftly.

Kitty Ussher: When I said that our advice was that a change required primary legislation, I did not say that that was a hurdle. However, it is obviously relevant to the way in which any change would be made.
	If primary legislation makes the change harder to achieve swiftly, is it sufficient to rebrand? It may be possible simply to do that, if local authorities agree that that is desirable. The words that we use in marketing and in the main forms and letters could be different from those in the primary legislation, as long as there was a link between them at some stage so that the change would not exist in the abstract. Primary legislation is not necessarily a hurdle, but matters need to be agreed and worked through.
	There is, of course, also the issue of cost. I will be honest with the hon. Gentleman: at this point in time estimates of the cost vary. I am sure that there is a way of reaching a consensus on that, which I hope to do in the next few weeks. However, if the costs are larger than one might hope, that could be relevantindeed, I am sure that my Treasury colleagues would certainly say that it is. I am keen to address the issue and come to a shared view on what the costs would be so that we can move forward. I am sure that all Opposition Members would also like to know what they are signing up to, if, as he said, they are to reach a cross-party consensus.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned the evidence base. I am grateful for the recent survey, which he referred to, the results of which were also sent to me earlier this week, because I had asked for a better look at the evidence. Although we all agree that making a change makes common sense, we would not want to go through the cost of doing so if the evidence base was not clear.
	There is no doubt that a stigma is sometimes attached to the word benefit, particularly among those of the elderly generation, who perhaps have great pride at never having signed on. Some will have done so and some will not, but for those who have not, doing so can often be quite a hurdle to overcome emotionally. If that prevents them from accessing the finance to which they are entitled, that is a problem and we would need to look into it. There is a parallel issue, which is that some people do not want to submit to a means test. People would still have to experience that, so we will need to extract the semantic issue from the substantial point. However, we are making some progress on that, and I am grateful for the work of the Royal British Legion in helping us get to the bottom of it.
	Those are the outstanding issues on which I am committed to trying to make progress. I hope that we will be able to return to the House in the not-too-distant future to report our progress on how we are moving forward, legislatively or otherwise, what the costs are and how we are ensuring a shared analysis of what the evidence really is. However, if it were not for such an excellent campaign, I might not be looking at the issue this week and next, so I again place on record my thanks to those involved and the hon. Gentleman.
	I want also to say a little about general rates of take-up and what we are trying to do in parallel with the current exercise, which leads to the automaticity point that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. Our figures show that only around 63 to 69 per cent. of all those whom we believe are entitled to receive council tax benefit actually do so, which is a problem. The percentage of eligible pensioners who receive the benefit is even lower, at between 55 and 61 per cent.
	The hon. Gentleman said that the problem had got worse, and we will perhaps have to look at the figures, because our figures show that it has remained fairly stable in recent years. That is not good enoughwe would like the figure to improvebut I guess it could be worse; at least it is not starting to fall. Even though council tax benefit already helps more than 5 million families, I would like the percentage of people who take up their entitlement to rise, and I am disappointed, frankly, that it has not done so in recent years.
	We are doing a lot of things to boost take-up. For example, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Pensions recently wrote to more than 200,000 pensioners who our records show to be in receipt of pension credit already, but who we think may be entitled to further financial support through council tax benefit, to encourage them directly to make such a claim. She has also written to the chief executive of every local authority, urging them to support our efforts to increase take-up and make use of the data that we send them about how people may be entitled. We are fairly optimistic that that will lead to another push, so that more people will receive more of the money to which they are entitled.
	We have made it simpler for pensioners to claim council tax benefit. They can now do so at the same time as making a claim for pension credit. In fact, they can claim pension credit, council tax benefit and housing benefit in one call to the relevant bit of the Pension, Disability and Carers Service. That works behind the scenes with details collected during the call being passed to the client's local authority, so that customers do not have to repeat information or ring two places, and all the rest of it. The service was introduced only in November last year, so we do not yet have figures for its impact, but there seem to be good anecdotal grounds for optimism.
	We are also encouraging the take-up of housing benefit and council tax benefit by focusing on those additional benefits in the full benefit entitlement check that our staff now carry out whenever they can, including at the 13,000 face-to-face visits to customers each week, which might be for a number of issues. I thank all our staff and local authority staff who make substantial efforts to ensure that people get that to which they are entitled. All that is on top of publicity materials and regular campaigns. We provide best practice guidance to local authorities explaining the barriers to take-up and encouraging them to learn from each other's good examples of how to overcome those barriers.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned automaticity. We recently took the first step towards seeing whether people could get council tax benefit automatically, by working with four local authorities to test whether data held by the Pension, Disability and Carers Service could be used to identify which customers are entitled to council tax benefit. We do not have the full results of that work yet, but the evidence so far from data-matching exercises is that we are some way from being able to identify sufficiently accurately those who are entitled. That is disappointing, because if we had the data to make that possible, automaticity would be the next policy decision to be made. Initial indications show that only a small proportion of the people whom we had identified and approached ended up making a successful claim. If that is what the full analysis shows, that will be disappointing, but we will use the results of the pilot to identify what the issues were and how we can improve the success rate.
	As a result of the meeting I had with Royal British Legion, I shall also ensure that we discuss what the benefit should be called, in our analysis, to see whether we can add to the evidence base, but not in a way that will delay for too long our conversations on policy.
	I hope that I have answered all the points that the hon. Gentleman made, and I congratulate him again on raising this issue, which is extremely current in Ministers' minds. I hope that we can continue the cross-party spirit and side-by-side working that we have managed to achieve with the Royal British Legion as a result of its excellent campaign. Again, I thank the people who signed the petition.
	This being the last debate before the Whitsun recess, I conclude by wishing you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and all Members of the House a very restful recess after what has been a turbulent time.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 House adjourned.